Dunay radar ( literally

Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...

;

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

: Cat House, Dog House) was a system of two Soviet radars used to detect American ballistic missiles fired at

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. They were part of the

A-35 anti-ballistic missile system The A-35 anti-ballistic missile system was a USSR, Soviet military anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system deployed around Moscow to intercept enemy ballistic missiles targeting the city or its surrounding areas. The A-35 was the only Soviet ABM syste ...

. One sector of one of the radars, the Dunay-3U ("Cat House") is still operational and is run by the

Russian Space Forces The Russian Space Forces () is the space force branch of the Russian Aerospace Forces. It was reestablished following the August 1, 2015 merger between the Russian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces, after the independent arm of s ...

as part of the Main Control Centre of Outer Space.

Dunay-2

The Dunay-2 was a prototype built in

Sary Shagan Sary Shagan (; ) is an anti-ballistic missile testing range located in Kazakhstan. On 17 August 1956 the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union authorized plans for an experimental facility for missile defence located at Sary Shagan, on the w ...

as part of the experimental

missile defence Missile defense is a system, weapon, or technology involved in the detection, tracking, interception, and also the destruction of attacking missiles. Conceived as a defense against nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), ...

system "A". It consisted of separate transmitter and receiver complexes separated by . The power of the radar was 100 kW and its range was . The NATO codename was "Hen Roost".

Dunay-3M

The Dunay-3 (;

: Dog House) was an upgrade of the Dunay-2 located in

Kubinka Kubinka () is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town in Odintsovsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, located on the Setun River, west of Moscow. Population: __TOC__ History Kubinka, founded in the 15th century, may have been named ...

, Moscow and became operational in 1968. Following an extensive upgrade in 1978 it was renamed Dunay-3M as part of the upgraded A-35M ABM system. It consisted of separate receiver and transmitter buildings separated by . The transmitter covered two sectors (roughly north and south) and its array was long and high. The power of each sector was about . The receiver was a building × containing 2

passive electronically scanned array A passive electronically scanned array (PESA), also known as passive phased array, is an antenna in which the beam of radio waves can be electronically steered to point in different directions (that is, a phased array antenna), in which all the ...

radars as well as the command and control centre for the A-35 system. The range of the system was . The radar was functional until it caught fire on 8 May 1988.

Dunay-3UP

This was a prototype of the Dunay-3U and was located in Sary Shagan test site. It was given the NATO codename "Top Roost".

Dunay-3U

The Dunay-3U (;

: Cat House) was built in 1978 as part of the upgraded A-35M anti-ballistic missile system. It is located in

Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...

and was structurally similar to the Dunay-3M – it has a separate receiver and transmitter separated by . There are two sectors. It was capable of identifying the launch of

Pershing II The Pershing II Weapon System was a solid-fueled two-stage medium-range ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the Pershing 1a Field Artillery Missile System as the United States Army's primary nuclear-capable thea ...

missiles from West Germany. In 1995 A-35M was replaced by the

A-135 anti-ballistic missile system The A-135 (NATO reporting name, NATO: ABM-4 Gorgon) is a Russian anti-ballistic missile system deployed around Moscow to intercept incoming warheads targeting the city or its surrounding areas. The system was designed in the Soviet Union and enter ...

which used the

Don-2N The Don-2N radar (, NATO: Pill Box) is a large missile defense and early warning active electronically scanned array radar outside Moscow, and a key part of the Russian A-135 anti-ballistic missile system designed for the defense of the capital ...

radar. One sector of the radar was decommissioned and is now abandoned while the other is used for surveillance of satellites in

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

. As a

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

radar it can identify smaller objects (15–40 cm) than the VHF radars such as the Daryal and Dnepr. The Dunay-3U was commissioned in May 1978 with a lifespan of 12 years, later being extended by ten more. Sector 62 of the radar was nonetheless decommissioned in 1998 while sector 61 had its service life extended again in 2001 and 2005 – the last extension lasting until December 2009, but it may have been extended again since. In 2012 the Russian Ministry of Defense issued a tender for the demolition of sector 62. Before 2003 the transmitter had 30

waveguide A waveguide is a structure that guides waves by restricting the transmission of energy to one direction. Common types of waveguides include acoustic waveguides which direct sound, optical waveguides which direct light, and radio-frequency w ...

s each excited by a transmitter. Since 2003 the station has been operating at a reduced power of rather than , with 12 transmitters (out of 24) rather than the previous maximum of 30. The radar is

chirp A chirp is a signal in which the frequency increases (''up-chirp'') or decreases (''down-chirp'') with time. In some sources, the term ''chirp'' is used interchangeably with sweep signal. It is commonly applied to sonar, radar, and laser syste ...

ed. The radar's computer system is made up of 10 K340 computers.

Locations

References

External links

Urban exploration photos from a visit to one sector of the Dunay-3UPlan of Dunay-3U receiver site (in Russian)Plan of Dunay-3U transmitter site (in Russian)Photograph of Dunay-3M receiver from VympelPhotograph of Dunay-3U receiver from VympelPhotograph of Dunay-3U transmitter from Vympel
{{Soviet Radar Soviet military radars Missile defense Military equipment introduced in the 1950s