In February 2023, American media exploded with a feeling: China launched a ball flying through the Pacific to Alaska, then to Canada to Montana, where he conducted electronic reconnaissance of the missile of the Air and Mining Market.

The US press with the help of politicians has scattered anger. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is confident that the balloon is equipped with equipment to collect and collect data.
China said the United States has denied all the allegations of spying and the allegations of Washington reacted too much. Beijing answered that it was a meteorite that had deviated from the route.
Strangely, Americans, who accused China of aggression, completely forgotten 70 years ago, the Soviet Union in the literal sense bomb Muslim space. In the winter of 1955-1956, they organized a special reconnaissance activity that hundreds of eye-catching balloons drifted in our airspace.
The bubble starts from the territory of Germany and the United Kingdom.
Our general staff fully understands that the main subjects interested in the intelligence of the United States are missile lands in Volgograd and Central Asia, as well as the Semipalatinsk nuclear research center.
It is difficult to deal with the shadow recipients, because they have the ability to display very small radar. However, they have dealt with. In February 1956, Americans stopped flying.
However, this is only the first stage developed by the CIA of the most complicated reconnaissance activity. She was followed by reconnaissance aircraft flights. One of Harry Powers' failure flights ended.
However, Americans will not give up their spies. The era of space intelligence begins. And we must honor the United States: they used this opportunity first, and, as they said, full.
In 1956, a group of engineers designed engineers worked at the Wright Patterson Air Base in Deuton. Working about creating a spy satellite promoted the launch in 1957 in the Soviet Union of an artificial earth satellite.
In February 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower approved an updated satellite launch program. The leadership of this spy program has been assigned to the central reconnaissance management.
The project is superstar. When the legend of the CIA used the idea of launching Biosyatnik was thought to be the one who discovered.
Stubborn work is fruit. In August 1960, Discoverer-13 worked standard. Americans began to develop their spy space program. In 1961, the United States brought 32 satellites into orbit.
Our special services are responsible for understanding that the satellites flying on the Soviet territory, to learn how to distinguish active operating devices from the steps of the launch and satellite means to stop their work. It is necessary to understand the purpose of each machine and determine the level of threat that he carries with him.
Radio and radio technical intelligence is one of the first people to monitor foreign spaces.
A hot supporter attracted radio and intelligence for such a job, General Mikhail Rogatkin, Deputy Director of the GRU.
In previous years of the war, Mikhail Ivanovich was the head of the Red Army Institute for Media and Technology Research Institute. During the war – Deputy Head of Radio Reconnaissance Department of the General Staff Intelligence Ministry. He led the job about the formation of the first parts of radio intervention.
According to General Rogatkin's initiative in the Baltic Army Radio Technical Regiment, in some other parts, an experiment was performed – they studied the possibility of radio emissions on spy satellite funds. It turned out that it was completely easy to do this even with the help of regular standard radio receivers.
It is important to find the ability of the American intelligence apparatus, answering the question that makes people worried: Americans see what in our territory from the space, whether the camouflage system is activated or it is helpless to all the orbit eyes.
This said it was time to create a special technical device system for foreign spacecraft.
Search for the fastest ways
What is required by the system? First of all, thus, by analyzing the radio emission of spy satellites, determining the purpose of the apparatus and its vitality, and also conducting an interception of the radio information poured to the ground. The system is named “star”.
The tasks face the new system are really monumental. But the questions are the same order. They started searching for the answers for them. Experts have launched some directions – optical techniques, radar and radio.
At the end of 1963, I moved to the GRU of the General Staff team, because it was the one who solved the problems of radio technical intelligence, where I found (a rare case!).
Because the purpose of the Viking stars is to block the technical information of the radio and radio stations that the US SPIENAS satellites fall into their reception stations, the system points should be placed at the extreme point of our country- the west and the east.
Three points were considered in the West: Kaliningrad, Vincent, Mukachevo. Stop at Vincent. In the east, Chukotka was first selected. But when everything was calculated in detail – the cost of shipping, harsh climate, decided to transfer items to Primorye, to Yakovlevka. The location of the central facility from which the entire system will be controlled in the Moscow region will be controlled.
The construction of the main structures begins and first, in Vincent. Meanwhile, the subjects are built, need to find the fastest ways to access radio communication satellites.
Insomnia information costs
In the Odessa area, in a shepherd, on the territory of the radio technical regiment, an interceptor of information and radio stations of the satellite systems with 12 m, according to GRU, is thought to be radio intercepting, both military and commercial satellite communication systems, built. So the star appears.
In 1971, Zvezdochka station was ready, General Peter Shmyrev told me, one of the participants of the program, military unit, headed by V. Rozhdestvensky, formed a small amount.
It is this equation that has been decided by Broadcasting Intelligence Engineer Yuri Krestovsky. This is what Yuri Veniaminovich himself recalled that scientific and technical work: The problems of mastering new sources of information on intelligence agencies in the 6th GRU General Department are always raised. Set the mission to develop and produce a set of equipment to receive these ISZs.
According to DSCS-2, the actual data has been absent. I was led by the head of the command to produce an intelligence station of a US strategic satellite.
The device is produced in a short time, less than a year. It is noteworthy that it is completely collected in the base in the country, not a foreign part.
The technique is transferred to a shepherd. They started to cohesive. The installation is very difficult, but the main difficulties happened later. The painful search for satellites began.
The signal was searched for five days. First in the Atlantic region, then in the Indian Ocean. Not found. After that, they started scanning frequency and in space, developed immediately by their own method.
And in Moscow, someone was in a hurry and reported, they said, the station was connected. And if it is cohesive, why is there no results of her work? And every day we go from the control of each one: accelerating, strengthening, etc.
Finally, after a week of insomnia, for the first time, it was possible to receive a signal of the DSCS-2 military strategy of the US military. And information transmitted through satellite channels! To be honest, it insomnia: Americans reported the activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Aviation Command. All of this, of course, we sent to Moscow. “
And the construction of “stars” has left themselves. The intelligence center for foreign cosmic objects in Vincente participated in 1975. After that, an authorized item in the Far East in Yakovlevka, behind him – in Transcaucasia in Kazakh.
The Zvezda system operates effectively, develops strongly and improves in the following years.