Russian OKNO Space Observation Complex

ОЭК ОКНО Нурек (Таджикистан) OKNO ( window) COMPLEX
asotano

The audio track is in Russian. You can get English subtitles by clicking on CC and then on the adjacent star / gear / settings icon, go Subtitles and then select English from the long list of languages. The subtitles are pert near incoherent, but if you mute the audio, you can get an idea of what this place is all about.

The lead picture on a Construction Physics post got me started.

OKNO

Pretty desolate looking place, except there's a lake. Probably ice cold.

I went looking for more information about this place. Wikipedia has a page. It's pretty sparse, but it had a link to a LiveJournal entry, however entry is denied, so I looked it up on the Wayback machine and found it. It's all in Russian. I got Google to translate it for me and here is the result:

---

"WINDOW" into outer space

14 Oct, 2011 at 5:35 PM

militarypenguin

So, I gathered my strength, put aside all urgent and not so urgent matters and chose a few photos to tell you about the unique object "Window", which I visited at the end of September.

"Okno" is an optical-electronic space control complex. It is located 9 km from the city of Nurek (Tajikistan) at an altitude of 2216 meters above sea level. The construction site was chosen in the 70s of the last century due to the properties of the atmosphere (transparency and stability) and the number of clear night hours (more than 1500 hours per year) - in the former USSR, areas with similar parameters exist only in the Caucasus, but the Nurek complex is located much further south and allows it to capture a larger number of objects.

The complex belongs to the Russian Space Forces, and has been operating in normal mode since 1999.

"Okno" allows for the detection, recognition and calculation of orbits of space objects in automatic mode at altitudes from 2000 to 40000 km and a size of more than one meter. The principle of operation is simple - space objects are detected by the sunlight they reflect. Space observation is carried out exclusively at night: both already known and newly discovered objects are recorded. In total, the complex's catalog contains 9,000 known space objects.

The road to the complex has not been repaired for many years, but according to the commander of the military unit, money for its major repairs has already been included in all budgets for next year. At the exit from the regular road towards the complex, there is a warning in Russian and Tajik.

The entire complex did not fit in my frame, but you can see the main parts in parts. The nearest building is the Command and Computing Center.

Space communication systems.

As in any military unit, a lot of attention is paid to the design and visual propaganda. :-) This hangs above the entrance to the Command and Computing Center.

The domes are precisely those very optical-electronic space probing complexes in a closed form. They do not work during the day, and therefore are closed.

View from the helipad to the Nurek hydroelectric power station reservoir.

And this is a view of the dacha of the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon - there will be a separate post about the dacha, as it turned out, I was the first blogger there on the territory. Well, and there was one microblogger before me - Dmitry Medvedev.

All incoming information is displayed on these screens during the operation of the complex. During the day, of course, the screens are turned off.

The banner of the military unit, presented on July 11, 2009 by the commander of the Russian Space Forces, is also kept here.

Due to the sedentary nature of the work at the command post, officers have the opportunity to ride a stationary bike and use a jump rope. :-) Without leaving their workplace.

Due to the fact that duty at the facility is daily, the military eats here.

There are also other buildings on the territory in addition to the Command and Computing Center, they also have propaganda. :-)

Some objects have their own names. This one is named after the city of Noginsk in the Moscow region (pre-revolutionary name - Bogorodsk) due to the fact that the military unit has excellent relations with the city and the children of the military attend a school that is officially a branch of one of the Noginsk schools in Nurek.

Actually, we went into "Bogorodskaya" to see what was going on. We even opened the dome for a while so that we could take pictures from different sides.

The dome opens using a very simple system, understandable to any normal person with a higher technical education. ;-)

Actually, the telescope rotates in several planes.

And this is a neighboring object that is undergoing maintenance.

I went there to take a picture of "Bogorodskaya" from the side.

Here you can see a stand with information about the performance characteristics of the optical-electronic station - I wrote about them a little higher).

View from the helipad to part of the complex.

The complex is surrounded by an electrified fence.

And this is how the Okno complex looks from the dacha of the President of Tajikistan.

If you look closely, you can see abandoned barracks in this photo, where conscripts serving at the facility lived until the mid-90s. After the civil war in Tajikistan, when the presence at the facility was minimized, and the transition to contract replenishment, they were no longer needed and are abandoned. Contract soldiers with their families live in service apartments on the territory of the unit in Nurek. Singles - in rooms for two. We did not go to these barracks, because there are a lot of poisonous snakes there.

I didn't take many photos on the territory of the unit in Nurek, because the unit is not much different from most of the military units I've been to over the past year. True, there is a difference. The unit's club was built by the military using extra-budgetary money. And this is the church, for which the military chipped in themselves. There is no priest in the unit (although a full-time position has already been allocated), the service is conducted by a priest from a Russian military base.

There is a place for sports (just under the windows of the hotel room where I spent the night). In the morning I was woken up by noise and looking out the window I saw a large number of officers doing pull-ups, abdominal exercises, etc. To the right are basketball and volleyball courts.

In general, thanks to this complex, Russian military and civilian leaders know almost everything about space objects flying above the Earth, and any new object is detected and identified in the shortest possible time. And it is not the telescopes that play a significant role in this, but the people serving in the unit.

I would like to express special gratitude for their participation to the unit commander, Colonel Dmitry Bataragin, and the deputy unit commander for educational work, Colonel Vladimir Samoilov, for their time spent with me. I know for sure that they and many servicemen of military unit 52168 will read this post. THANK YOU! ;-)))