Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency JPRS translation, dated 10 October 1990, reproduces a KRASNAYA ZVEZDA article by Lieutenant Colonel A. Dokuchayev about the Soviet outer space monitoring system (SKKP). Officers at its tracking center describe cataloging more than 7,000 orbital objects and tracking the fragments of a satellite that re-entered the atmosphere. They also describe helping the Soyuz T-13 crew find the silent Salyut-7 station. The article says center data showed the downed South Korean Boeing-747 flight in 1983 was synchronized with a Ferret-D reconnaissance satellite.
“The Pentagon”3 pages
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## UNCLASSIFIED ## Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1990 Document 7 of 16 Classification: UNCLASSIFIED Status: [STAT] Document Date: 10 Oct 90 Category: [CAT] Report Type: JPRS Report Report Date: Report Number: JPRS-USP-90-005 UDC Number: Author(s): Lieutenant Colonel A. Dokuchayev, KRASNAYA ZVEZDA correspondent: 'A Bridle for the Nuclear 'Racers,' or What the Space Monitoring System Represents''] Headline: Space Surveillance System Described Source Line: 91UM0040A Moscow KRASNAYA ZVEZDA in Russian 10 Oct 90 First Edition p 2 Subslug: [Article by Lieutenant Colonel A. Dokuchayev, KRASNAYA ZVEZDA correspondent: 'A Bridle for the Nuclear 'Racers,' or What the Space Monitoring System Represents'] FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE: 1. [Article by Lieutenant Colonel A. Dokuchayev, KRASNAYA ZVEZDA correspondent: 'A Bridle for the Nuclear 'Racers,' or What the Space Monitoring System Represents'] 2. [Text] We are completing an article on strategic deterrence systems that are at the disposal of the USSR Armed Forces. (See KRASNAYA ZVEZDA of 27 September and 5 October.) Today's material is about the outer space monitoring system (SKKP). 3. Colonel V. Nikolskiy pointed to an enormous bay with displays and multicolored screens--the command post of the space monitoring system. He says look and study. 4. ''From here we see practically the entire moving cosmos,'' he explained. 5. I familiarize myself with what yesterday was an inaccessible and top secret facility. Dozens of questions crop up. First: Why do we need this very modern and expensive all-seeing eye? 6. Colonel G. Kovsh, chief of the department who was keeping up the conversation, answers one question after another: 'Do you know how many objects there are in outer space? More than 7,000 have been counted, active and inactive satellites... We are talking about those that are placed in orbit. All told there are more than 20,000 flying objects--outer space is cluttered. Out there a very ordinary needle is capable of piercing a spacecraft and causing trouble. But the problem is not in the number-- not all space apparatuses are harmless...'
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 5 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.