Russia restores space echelon of US missile launch warning
Reduced time to make decisions about retaliatory strike
The Russian space forces have successfully launched a satellite in the interests of the Ministry of Defense from the Plesetsk military cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region, improved the capabilities of the missile attack warning system. This was reported by the military expert, editor of the magazine “Arsenal of the Fatherland” Alexei Leonkov.
The missile attack warning system is a strategic element of the country’s security. The task of this system is to build strategic missile launch capabilities in the direction of Russia as early as possible and provide the necessary information to the country’s military-political leadership.
Based on this information, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief decides on a retaliatory strike. If the missile attack warning system works as it should, then a nuclear retaliation strike is guaranteed. It is precisely this effort that keeps the potential advantage from being tempted to attack.
The missile attack warning system (EWS) has two main components: a network of Voronezh ground-based radar stations capable of detecting foreign ballistic missiles thousands of kilometers from our borders and calculating their trajectory. “Sharpened” for detection from space of the launch of ballistic missiles.
It is clear that satellites are more effective in this matter. They “see” everything even on the opposite side of the Earth from us. In the 90s, the space segment of our missile attack warning system “subsided”, old satellites were out of order, new ones were not launched. This reduced the capabilities of the early warning system. And now, as Alexei Leonkov wrote in his Telegram channel, the space echelon of the missile attack warning system has been restored.
“The new missile attack warning system (EWS) with the launch of the 4th Tundra satellite has been completed to the minimum operational level,” the expert wrote.
Onnil that the space segment of the Russian early warning system participates in the formation of a retaliatory oncoming strike.
Leonkov recalled that the Soviet space group of the missile attack warning system, which was called “Oko”, consisted of 9 US-K satellites and participated in the formation of a retaliatory strike.
Since 1991, Oko has been upgraded to the Oko-1 system with US-KMO satellites. The Oko-1 space segment was supposed to consist of seven satellites. By 2014, only two US-KMO satellites remained in orbit. Since 2015, only the ground segment of the over-the-horizon radars has been operating in the missile attack warning system, which formed the algorithm for the retaliatory oncoming strike. Enormous forces and resources were thrown into the restoration of the space echelon.
“The emergence of the space segment consists of the satellite” Tundra “- the expert writes, -” significantly reduces the time for making decisions about a retaliatory strike. “
The United States has a similar system. It has five SBIRS-GEO satellites in geostationary orbit and 4 SBIRS-HEO satellites. Satellites in geostationary orbit, the height of which is about 40 thousand kilometers, are able to “hang” over a certain area of the Earth, conducting continuous observation.
According to Leonkov, the American warning system “has a small margin of time to analyze and form a decision to strike.”
“Apparently, therefore, in the main tactics of the use of nuclear weapons by the United States, since 2018, they have chosen a preemptive strike,” Leonkov wrote.
What is holding them back from such a blow to Russian targets is the understanding that they are guaranteed a retaliation strike.