Pivan-1 () is a

military townlet In military of Russia and some other post-Soviet states (as well as in the former Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, ...

near Komsomolsk-na-Amur in Khabarovsk Krai in the

Russian Far East The Russian Far East ( rus, Дальний Восток России, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in North Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asia, Asian continent, and is coextensive with the Far Easte ...

which is the location of the eastern control centre for Russia's Oko satellites. These give early warning of ballistic missile launches, mainly from the continental

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The site is part of the Main Centre for Missile Attack Warning and information from here is processed at the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces centre in Solnechnogorsk and could be used, together with early warning radar such as the Voronezh, for

launch on warning Launch on warning (LOW), or fire on warning, is a strategy of nuclear weapon retaliation where a retaliatory strike is launched upon warning of enemy nuclear attack and while its missiles are still in the air, before detonation occurs. It gaine ...

or the A-135 anti-ballistic missile system. A similar facility is located at Serpukhov-15 near Moscow. The name Pivan-1 is a code name following the practice established to name closed cities and military facilities. It is named after the nearest settlement, Pivan.

Oko

Oko consists of two types of early warning satellites - US-K and US-KMO. The older US-K satellites are in highly elliptical molniya orbits which give them coverage of the United States at certain times during the day. For full coverage of the US missile grounds four US-K satellites need to be operational and the system can have up to nine of them in orbit at once. The US-KMO satellites are

geosynchronous A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital ...

satellites providing continuous coverage. In total, 101 satellites have been launched. The Oko system was placed on combat duty in 1982. The last US-KMO satellite (

Kosmos 2479 Kosmos 2479 ( meaning ''Cosmos 2479'') is a Russian US-KMO missile early warning satellite which was launched in 2012 as part of the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces' Oko programme. The satellite is designed to identify missile launches using in ...

) was launched on 30 March 2012 and the last US-K satellite ( Kosmos 2469) on 30 September 2010. They are being replaced by a new system called EKS.

Facility

The western Oko control centre at Serpukhov-15 was put on combat duty in 1982 . The eastern one started to be built in 1982, started testing in 1991, went onto experimental combat duty in 2002 and full combat duty on 30 April 2012. It consists of seven antennas, each under a high dome and weighing . There are also facilities for data processing. As the eastern control centre it can communicate with geosynchronous satellites in four of the seven reserved locations, those looking over the Pacific. However, there had never been satellites in the three positions furthest east until

was moved to 166°E in October 2012. The others, looking over the Atlantic, need to be controlled from the western centre.

External links

Photo set from the opening from Novosti Kosmonavtiki

References

{{Use British English, date=January 2014 Military installations of Russia Russian Space Forces Soviet military radars