Soviet Union[edit]
1986 DIA illustration of the IS system attacking a target.
The origins of the Soviet anti-satellite weapon program are unclear. According to some accounts, Sergei Korolev started some work on the concept in 1956 at his OKB-1, while others attribute the work to Vladimir Chelomei's OKB-52 around 1959. What is certain is that at the beginning of April 1960, Nikita Khrushchev held a meeting at his summer residence in Crimea, discussing an array of defense industry issues. Here, Chelomei outlined his rocket and spacecraft program, and received a go-ahead to start development of the UR-200 rocket, one of its many roles being the launcher for his anti-satellite project. The decision to start work on the weapon was made in March 1961 as the Istrebitel Sputnik (IS) (lit. "fighter satellite").
The IS system was "co-orbital", approaching its target over time and then exploding a shrapnel warhead close enough to kill it. The missile was launched when a target satellite's ground track rises above the launch site. Once the satellite is detected, the missile is launched into orbit close to the targeted satellite. It takes 90 to 200 minutes (or one to two orbits) for the missile interceptor to get close enough to its target. The missile is guided by an onboard radar. The interceptor, which weighs 1400 kg, may be effective up to one kilometer from a target.
Delays in the UR-200 missile program prompted Chelomei to request R-7 rockets for prototype testing of the IS. Two such tests were carried out on November 1, 1963 and April 12, 1964. Later in the year Khrushchev cancelled the UR-200 in favor of the R-36, forcing the IS to switch to this launcher, whose space launcher version was developed as the Tsyklon 2. Delays in that program led to the introduction of a simpler version, the 2A, which launched its first IS test on October 27, 1967, and a second on April 28, 1968. Further tests carried out against a special target spacecraft, the DS-P1-M, which recorded hits by the IS warhead's shrapnel. A total of 23 launches have been identified as being part of the IS test series. The system was declared operational in February 1973.
Testing resumed in 1976 as a result of the U.S. work on the Space Shuttle. Elements within the Soviet space industry convinced Leonid Brezhnev that the Shuttle was a single-orbit weapon that would be launched from Vandenberg, maneuver to avoid existing anti-ballistic missile sites, bomb Moscow in a first strike, and then land.[4] Although the Soviet military was aware these claims were false[citation needed], Brezhnev believed them and ordered a resumption of IS testing along with a Shuttle of their own. As part of this work the IS system was expanded to allow attacks at higher altitudes and was declared operational in this new arrangement on July 1, 1979. However, in 1983, Yuri Andropov ended all IS testing and all attempts to resume it failed.[5] Ironically, it was at about this point that the U.S. started its own testing in response to the Soviet program.
The Soviet Union also experimented with large, ground-based ASAT lasers from the 1970s onwards (see Terra-3), with a number of U.S. spysats reportedly[citation needed] being 'blinded' (temporarily) during the 1970s and 1980s. The USSR had also researched directed energy weapons, under the Fon project from 1976, but the technical requirements needed of the high-powered gas dynamic lasers and neutral or charged particle beam systems seemed to be beyond reach. In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union also started developing a counterpart to the U.S. air-launched ASAT system, using modified MiG-31 'Foxhounds' (at least six of which were completed) as the launch platform.
The USSR also experimented with Almaz military space stations, arming them with fixed Rikhter R-23 autocannons.
One last Soviet design worth mentioning is 11F19DM Skif-DM/Polyus, an orbital battlestation with a megawatt-range laser that failed on launch in 1987.
