Amongst other things, I am looking back at what were referred to in the West as "minor military" satellites and I am trying to sort out the Yuzhnoye satellites in the Koltso and Duga programmes. From Gunter Krebs' web site there were three Koltso satellites (
http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/koltso.htm): Cosmos 1985, 2053 and 2106: these appear to be "second generation" Taifun-2 satellites (Krebs suggests Taifun-3?) in that they deployed 36 Romb sub-satellites rather than the Taifun-2 24 Rombs.
The name Duga has appeared in literature as being a Yuzhnoye satellite and the ever-unreliable Encyclopedia Astronautica seems to suggest that Duga was another name for the Taifun-3 satellites, and specifically names Cosmos 1985 and 2053 as missions (
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/taifun3.htm).
Can anyone clarify the situation concerning these designators please? Maybe the complete satellite is called Taifun-3/Koltso and the sub-satellites are really called Duga? Or the other way around, of course?
Since Romb is the name given to the Taifun-2 sub-satellites, does anyone know what the "ministry" designator for the Taifun-2 satellites is please?
Many thanks!
The Yuzhnoe history published in 2004 ("Prizvany vremenem") identifies three generations of radar calibration satellites :
1st generation :
DS-P1-Yu
DS-P1-I
Tyulpan
2nd generation :
Taifun-1A
Taifun-1V
Duga-K
Taifun-1B
Taifun-2A
Taifun-2B
Taifun-2V
3rd generation :
Koltso
Taifun-1A, Taifun-1V and Duga-K were all based on the Taifun-1 platform (spherical satellites weighing between 585 and 810 kg, which could not be oriented). Duga-K is described as an experimental system "to perfect methods of of controlling the functioning of beyond-the-horizon radars". Taifun-1B was a passive satellite only designed to reflect radar signals. The Yuzhnoe book says it originally was also supposed to be based on the Taifun-1 platform, but that eventually another design was chosen (even though it also had a spherical shape).
Between 1974 and 1994 a total of 25 Taifun-1A and Taifun-1V satellites were launched. The book gives the Kosmos numbers for these satellites, but doesn't specify which were 1A and 1V. Taifun-1A satellites had inclinations of 51° and 66° and Taifun-1V satellites had inclinations of 51°, 66° and 83°.
The Duga-K series saw two launches (Kosmos-2002 and 2059) and the Taifun-1B series saw 10 launches using the 11K65M booster from both Plesetsk and Kapustin Yar (Kosmos-1146, 1179, 1418, 1427, 1463, 1502, 1577, 1615, 1787, 2265) and one launch using the Zenit from Baikonur (Kosmos-1786). Strangely enough, the book adds that "information about the launch of three other [Taifun-1B] satellites produced by Yuzhnoe is missing".
The Taifun-2 satellites were three-axis stabilized and based on the AUOS-3 bus. All three subtypes (2A, 2B and 2V) carried 24 subsatellites. The names of the subsatellites are not given, but the subsatellite separation systems are identified as SOT-A, SOT-B and SOT-V for the three subtypes respectively. The only difference between SOT-A and SOT-B was the ejection speed, while SOT-V was designed for "optical reflectors". The book says 25 Taifun-2 type satellites were launched by the 11K65M from both Plesetsk and Kapustin Yar, but again doesn't say how many of each subtype were launched. However, the inclinations should allow to positively identify most of them : 74° for 2A, 51°, 66° and 83° for 2B and 66° for 2V.
Although it looks very similar to Taifun-2, Koltso is described as a third-generation satellite with a more accurate pointing system and a larger amount of subsatellites. It was designed to test elements of the Moscow air defence system. Three were launched (Kosmos-1985, 2053 and 2106).
Taifun-3 was approved by a government decree on 25 December 1984, but was eventually never launched. It was a further modification of Taifun-2 that could have been launched either by the 11K65M or 11K68. It would have ejected subsatellites of different shapes (spherical, cylindrical, cone-shaped).
I list several anomalies in the book of KB Yuzhnoye.
Tayfun-1 (A and V)
- They don't have Cosmos 930, but they have Cosmos 896, which was actually a Zenit-class satellite.
- They have Cosmos 1007, which was actually a Zenit-class satellite.
Tayfun-1B
- They have Cosmos 1577, but they don't have Cosmos 1578.
- They have Cosmos 1787, which was actually a Strela-3 satellite.
- They don't have Cosmos 1868, Cosmos 2137, Cosmos 2164 and Cosmos 2332, which are listed as Tayfun-1B in Krebs' website.
So, since they have one "imaginary" satellite (1787) and four missing satellites, it explains why the author wrote that three satellites were missing !
Tayfun-2
- The three Tayfun-2 launch failures do not appear in the book.
Found this fragment of information
Лом металлов от списанного оборудования (комплект НТО 17Ф31 - 2 шт., 17Ф115 - 1 шт., 11Ф633 - 1 шт., 11Ф634 - 1 шт.), в том числе: лом черных металлов
11Ф633 - Taifun-1A Vektor
11Ф634 - Taifun-2 Romb
17Ф115 - Kolsto
17Ф31 - Taifun-1B Yug
Originally the name Romb was applied to the parent satellite which deployed more than 20 sub-satellites in orbit as part of a "radar calibration" programme. Subsequently the accepted knowledge became that Romb was the name of the sub-satellite, not the parent satellite.
We now know - as Stan Black has quoted above - that this satellite was the Taifun-2/11F634. But there are plenty of Russian/Ukrainian sources which link the Romb name to the main Taifun-2 satellite itself, not the sub-satellites.
Can anyone clarify this please? If Romb is correctly the overall satellite, do we have any idea what the sub-satellites were designated? I have seen no designators which can be obviously applied to them.