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SPACE SECRETS REDUCED
Independent Military Review. October 25-31, 2002. By Sergei Grigoriev
This book takes first place among other volumes of the Encyclopedia "Russia's
Arms and Technologies", issued by the Publishing House, due to amount of information
and difficulty to percept it, because the subject is extensive and specific.
The knowledge level of almost any reader competent in military sphere allows
him to understand a reference book or encyclopedia about aviation, armory or
artillery. But this is not true when reading about space weapons.
Till the present time there was no reference book in Russia, painting a complete
and true picture of space weapons and explaining by what means these weapons
ensure the safety of our State. If the new volume issued does not close this
gap completely, it creates a fundament for learning this subject.
In order to be competent in this subject, it is necessary to know mechanics
of space flights at least at minimal extent, acquire specific terminology, be
able to understand that the term like "remote sounding of terrestrial surface"
means the main destination of a reconnaissance spacecraft, and so on. It is
more difficult to associate specifications of some system with the efficiency
of its contribution to the State defense system, and there are few people able
to do this.
In this context the inclusion of two articles, small in size but fundamental,
was a good choice of the book authors. These articles significantly simplify
understanding of reference sections in the Encyclopedia. The first article -
"Space systems and facilities", - is contributed by Yuri Koptev, the General
Director the Russian Aviation and Space Agency. This article classifies space
and ground based systems by destination and describes connections between them.
The second article - "Space Force providing information support for Russian
Armed Forces", - written by Colonel General Anatoli Perminov, describes main
tendencies of the evolution of military space systems.
Due to the variety and complexity of systems, choosing the principle how to
organize materials in the volume, was one of the most difficult tasks faced
by the Encyclopedia compilers. In order to solve this problem, all articles
were divided by three sections:
- "Missile and Space Defense Systems";
- "Missile and Space Equipment";
- "Tests of Missile and Space Equipment. Preparation for Manned Spaceflights".
In order to organize data inside sections, the authors reasonably chose the
matrix principle: some materials were grouped by enterprises, which are main
designers; other materials - by subject of activities held by scientific and
testing centers in this branch of industry. This provided the possibility to
cover the subject from different points of view, and to reveal the common character
and mutual dependency of various technical facilities. At the same time, taking
into account the complexity of this subject, the book probably should contain
additional simplified materials (graphs and tables), which could cover the entire
subject before describing details.
Traditionally the Encyclopedia establishes a standard of openness in description
of military equipment. The same happened at this time too. It was the first
time when real names of many systems have been published, before only known
in secret materials or used in unofficial ones. For example, the space component
for early warning about a space attack (the systems "US-KS" and "US-KMO"), the
naval space reconnaissance system ("US-A" and "US-P"), and some others.
In some cases the authors went forth and lifted the veil of secrecy over prospective
designs. Future radar systems for missile and air defense based on principles
of open architecture, modularity and high availability were never described
in such detail before. The same can be said about future systems for naval space
reconnaissance and pointing (MRKC). Open sources never reported about designs
of MRKC-N and MRKC-P - low-orbit systems for ship and submarine detection.
Many other articles in the Encyclopedia are unique as well. For example, the
map of radar fields of the ground based component for early warning about a
space attack was prepared by designers rather than by foreign analysts. The
optoelectronic space monitoring systems "Okno" and "Krona" are described in
detail.
Historical materials of the volume can be used to determine the future of next-generation
technics. This is related to full description of native aerospace plane projects.
The problem, actively discussed now, of use missile and space defense systems
to defend the Earth against asteroids is described in the Encyclopedia quite
completely.
In general, the new volume is an unquestionable success of the Publishing House
"Arms and Technologies". Probably, it will be less interesting to ordinary readers
than books about common weapons, but, no doubt, it will take the best place
in specialist's library.
Широкий выбор комплектующих, в Воронеже
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