Boris Ustyugov. Rocketman's Day

Rocketman's Day
Boris Ustyugov

Publication date: February 18, 2004

Russia's space interests have become involved in the maelstrom of a powerful propaganda campaign surrounding naval and air defense exercises. On the evening of February 17, the president, accompanied by Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and Space Force Commander Anatoly Perminov, flew to the Plesetsk cosmodrome and immediately held a demonstration meeting there on the prospects for the development of the country's space forces. At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Vladimir Putin was personally present at the launch of the Molniya-M launch vehicle, which launched a satellite into orbit “in the interests of the Ministry of Defense.” Then the president watched the broadcast of another launch - on the same day, the non-peaceful RS-18 rocket launched from Baikonur.

Obviously, naval exercises in the Northern Fleet , again using strategic missiles, were a worthy prelude to this main fireworks display. The president himself explained such a parade by the need for training, “which has not been carried out for a long time.” “We will support nuclear power, since nuclear forces are one of the key issues of our security,” was Putin’s comment verbatim at the end of the firing exercises. “We should not behave in such a way that they fear us, but we must behave in such a way that the world perceives [Russia’s] military power as an element of security,” Putin repeated Secretary General Brezhnev’s time-worn formula for the nuclear shield.

At the president’s signal, the rocket salvo was followed by a propaganda salvo - news agency feeds spent the whole day firing messages about the deplorable state of our defense and the remarkable forces invested in it. To begin with, former Air Force Commander-in-Chief and co-chairman of the non-departmental expert council on aerospace defense issues, Army General Anatoly Kornukov, described the domestic missile defense in rather gloomy colors. “The state of the missile defense system is deplorable. Long-term lack of money led to the fact that it was practically not updated. The S-50 system included in the missile defense system had an effectiveness of 0.98, now it is much lower. Half of the combat personnel are missing. The S-135 system is also not in the best condition “The firepower remains the same as it was when the system first entered service, that is, many, many years ago,” the former Air Force commander told reporters at a round table on the military space industry (VKO), which took place as if by chance on Wednesday. same in Moscow. Kornukov noted in passing that the role of aerospace defense will constantly increase. “You won’t win the war with the Aerospace Defense Forces alone, but without it you will certainly lose. Russia needs the Aerospace Defense Forces not to shoot, but to restrain.” The general also reminded that Russia needs to look for ways to adequately respond to the US withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty.

Then the PR service of the Ministry of Defense clearly presented the country with another piece of news: tests of the Triumph anti-aircraft missile system with a standard long-range missile will be carried out before March 8. It is planned to complete a set of tests of this missile within a year. As for the 48N6E missile, which is part of the famous S-300 system, its tests have already been completed. All acts have been signed. Another important news : the Plesetsk cosmodrome is currently undergoing flight tests of the Rokot space rocket complex (there have already been 5 launches of this launch vehicle). By 2005, tests of the modernized Soyuz-2 launch vehicle and the promising Angara rocket will begin...

All sorts of abbreviations and menacing phrases dazzled my eyes. The press services of Rosaviakosmos and the Ministry of Defense lacked only price lists for various types of equipment and services.

Obviously, soon the Russians will understand the complex coded names of our missile systems no worse than the names of the players of Canadian hockey clubs - yesterday, at least, all consumers of information clearly understood that the Molniya-M launch vehicle (the one so successfully took off under the president from Plesetsk) consists of four stages, was put into service in 1975, has a mass of 315 tons, a length of 43.4 meters and can launch cargo weighing up to 2 tons into orbit.

At first glance, to the peace-loving European public, the Russian president is behaving somehow strangely. Many still remember the sensational statements Vladimir Putin made in September 2000 at the Millennium Summit in New York. Then the unknown new Russian president caused a minor sensation with his proposal to hold an international conference in Moscow under the auspices of the UN on preventing the militarization of outer space. “It is necessary to reliably block any routes for the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other types of weapons of mass destruction, as well as their means of delivery. The time has come to moderate ambitions in matters of militarization of outer space,” the president repeated a few months later in Moscow. This is where Vladimir Putin’s peace initiatives dried up.

All the following years, the guarantor of the Constitution demonstrated a downright boyish interest in weapons - during this time he rode to his heart's content on tanks, planes and submarines, left his signature on the engine of a strategic space rocket, and yesterday even received a model of the notorious "Molniya" as a gift from Plesetsk employees ".

However, such a pronounced military bias in almost all the latest actions and statements of the Russian president can also be explained by a completely prosaic ultimate goal - the remnants of the military space lobby in the cabinet of ministers skillfully use the martinet habits of the supreme commander in chief to achieve tangible material results. After all, the game of reviving the orbital satellite constellation and other space amusements of the empire builder probably have an eye on commercial launches of foreign satellites and astronauts (due to their absence due to frequent accidents, the entire domestic space industry has suffered in recent years). It is not for nothing that during each of Putin’s visits to some exotic country - from Malaysia to Brazil - in negotiations with their leaders, sooner or later the conversation turns to flights of citizens of these countries into space on Russian ships. In their intrusiveness, these messages have recently been reminiscent of television advertising “Then we are coming to you...”. And promises need to be backed up with something. So now the president of the former superpower is trying, for advertising purposes, launching some military communications satellites and without explaining to anyone what these satellites will do in space and who will connect with whom - if almost all the ground stations of the country’s space forces, according to the military themselves, are in a deep crisis, and their equipment is long outdated.