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Russian TV features satellite tracking station to mark Space Day

Posted on: Monday, 12 April 2004, 06:00 CDT

Excerpt from report by Russian external TV service NTV Mir on 12 April

[Presenter] Space Day is usually associated with people working in orbit. The back-up services are frequently forgotten. There is one such service working on the ground that can claim to have a cult status, though it is not having he best of times at the moment. But at least they give them good fluid to clean an historical control panel.

Here reporting from Kamchatka [Russian Far East] is our special correspondent, Petr Lyubimov.

[Correspondent] There are over 10 such complexes in our country. With their help, you can see everything that happens in space above Russian territory. Any information received from space, whether it concerns images of far-flung stars or photographs of US military bases obtained by spy satellites, is conveyed to Moscow in a matter of seconds.

Each morning the Space Troops space communications crew in Yelizovo begins by cleaning the antenna systems control panel. The panel is now antiquated and is no longer operational. But it was this panel from which the flight of Yuriy Gagarin was tracked. It is in its own way a cult site. [Passage omitted]

This separate command and measurement complex for tracking space apparatus was built straight after the launch of the first satellite. They say it was completed in three months. An unprecedented period. [Passage omitted]

The complex in Yelizovo is a relay link. All the information gathered by our satellites, and there are more than 100 of them, during their orbits of the Earth are sent here. In other words, without this complex in Kamchatka our orbital contingent would be blind and deaf.

[Andrey Varenik, head of the satellite-relay control complex] These antennas were built in 1961. They still work. Some parts were supplemented or changed. Some units were changed for more modern ones. But the basic part performing the reflecting function is old.

[Correspondent] You have a unique chance to see a satellite actually orbiting the earth at an altitude of about 300 km through the eyes of specialists. It is simply a collection of figures.

[Aleksandr Tarasevich, senior engineer at the satellite-relay control complex, seen pointing to computer screen] This column identifies the apparatus we have linked up with. This one shows the electrical current load in the space apparatus. And this one the voltage emitted by the solar battery.

[Correspondent] The most complicated part of their work is monitoring a docking in orbit. This is how they work from day to day. When there is a docking with the International Space Station, they have to work with surgical precision. Their pay is the same as everyone's, in accordance with the Defence Ministry's instructions.

[Eduard Yakhin, aide to the command of space apparatus control] We are moving over to computer technologies. Instead of these standard large facilities and control panels, we are putting in a monitoring station of the latest generation. The rate of modernization is increasing each year at the moment, whatever is said about funding shortages. [Passage omitted]

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