On June 12, servicemen of the Space Forces serving at the Volga radar station located in the Republic of Belarus celebrated the 25th anniversary of their unit. This radar station is one of the key facilities of the Main Center for Missile Attack Warning (GC PRN) of the Space Forces.
The decision to build the Volga radar station was made on August 20, 1984. Then it was supposed to be primarily used to detect the Pershing-2 missiles, which threatened the Soviet Union from the western direction. That is why the radar station was placed 50 kilometers from the city of Baranovichi in Belarus.
Here, for the first time, the method of accelerated erection of a multi-storey technological building was used from large volume-structural modules manufactured at Moscow factories. The modules were designed so that they had all the necessary embedded elements for installing the equipment, providing it with power supply and cooling. Erection of a building made of these "cubes" made it possible to approximately halve the construction time.
The Volga radar has continued and developed the idea of building long-range detection stations for ballistic missiles and spacecraft - continuous-emission radars. Hybrid-integrated circuits, microcircuits and computers are widely used. Frequency-dependent antennas have been replaced by active phased arrays. High-power transistor modules were used in the transmitting complex, and digital processing of the received signals was used in the receiving complex.
The results of work on the radar made it possible in 1987 to expand the production of equipment in full. The station was supposed to be completed in five years. However, after the signing of the Soviet-American treaty on the elimination of intermediate and shorter-range missiles, work was stopped. It was believed that in connection with the disappearance of the threat of attacking the RSD, the need for the "Volga" disappeared.
Nevertheless, after some time, the construction of the radar was nevertheless decided to continue, along the way carrying out its modernization. Since the 1972 ABM Treaty prohibited the construction of multifunctional radar stations, anti-missile guidance was removed from the range of tasks assigned to the Volga.
The collapse of the Soviet Union for the missile attack warning system turned into a cessation of funding for facilities under construction. Since the beginning of the 90s, work in Baranovichi has been practically frozen. However, when it became clear that Russia, after the decommissioning of the radar station in Skrunda (Latvia), is deprived of the technical ability to control the north-western missile-hazardous direction, a decision is made to continue work in Belarus.
Following the signing in 1995 of an agreement between Russia and Belarus, the cooperation of industrial enterprises continued to improve the station (Agreement on the procedure for completing the construction, use and maintenance of the Baranovichi Node of the missile attack warning system located on the territory of the Republic of Belarus dated January 6, 1995). This document was ratified by the Russian Federation on May 27, 1996.
In 2001, after the creation of the Space Forces of the Russian Federation, work on commissioning the Volga was actively resumed, and state tests of the radar began. In December 2001, the first stage of the station was put on trial duty. Even then, this made it possible to ensure the detection of ballistic missiles launched from the waters of the East and West Atlantic.
On December 20, 2002, the Volga was put on trial duty, and on October 1, 2003, it took up combat duty.
Nowadays, the radar station performs not only its main task - the detection of ballistic missiles, it also monitors the near-earth space, recording more than 1000 objects flying in space every day, which are identified by the results of measurements.
In general, the Volga is a guarantor of strategic stability in the region and one of the most important elements of the Russian missile attack warning system. Moreover, it should be noted that the development of the domestic early warning system is gaining momentum. In December last year, in the village of Lekhtusi, Leningrad Region, a prototype of a high-availability radar station (VZG radar) Voronezh-M was put on duty. She is completely ready to intercede on combat duty, which will take place in the near future. In February last year, the second radar station of the VZG "Voronezh-DM" took over on experimental combat duty in the Krasnodar Territory. In 2010, it is planned to put it on alert.
But for the first time, technical solutions, which were subsequently developed and used in the creation of the latest, so-called modular radars of high factory readiness, were implemented during the creation of the Volga radar station. It should be noted that the scientific and technical potential inherent in it makes it possible to increase operational and technical characteristics, expand its capabilities, and conduct rationalization work.
reference
The radar station (radar) "Volga" of the missile attack warning system is a land-based stationary radar of a sector type and is intended for continuous monitoring of outer space in the western direction in order to detect enemy ballistic missiles (BR) on trajectories and artificial earth satellites in a given sector. And also for the issuance of information about them in automatic mode to the notified control points.
