Russia to upgrade MAWS

It came to light recently that the last geostationary satellite of the Oko-1 ballistic missile early detection system had gone out of commission. The loss of the satellite weakened the outer space segment of the Missile Attack Warning System (MAWS), which is one of the main elements of the country's strategic defense system.

According to a source close to the Ministry of Defense, the lack of geostationary satellites is being compensated for by new horizon radar systems known as Voronezh-M and Voronezh-DM. Located in the Kaliningrad, Leningrad, Irkutsk, and Krasnodar regions, these stations operate in two frequency ranges: the meter range (Voronezh-M) and the decimeter range (Voronezh-DM). They create a radar field, which makes it possible to easily detect space objects and effectively prevent missile attacks. The new system will perform at a higher level, and will track not only ballistic missiles, but tactical ones as well.

Rusia: Nuevo radar antimisiles

Rusia ha comenzado hoy martes la construcción de un nuevo radar avanzado de alerta temprana antimisiles, al objeto de mejorar las capacidades de su sistema de defensa antimisiles.

El nuevo radar será del tipo Voronezh y se ubicará cerca de la ciudad de Orsk en la región de Orenburgo como parte de la red de alerta temprana antimisiles que se completará para el año 2020. Se prevé que el radar entre en servicio a mediados de 2015 ya que será ensamblado mediante una novedosa técnica de ultima generación que permite completar el proceso en cuestión de 18 meses como máximo, en lugar de los 5 a 9 años que hasta ahora se necesitaban para este tipo de radares.

Actualmente se encuentran en servicio un radar Voronezh-DM en el territorio de Krasnodar y un radar Voronezh-M en la región de Leningrado. También hay sendos radares Voronezh-DM en las regiones de Kaliningrado e Irkutsk, pero se encuentran en fase de pruebas por el momento.

Russia activates new early warning radar systems

The Voronezh-DM early warning radar in Kaliningrad is set to be put on combat duty in late 2014.
The station itself monitors North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea as far as the Atlantic Ocean, which includes the areas patrolled by American, Ohio-class submarines with strategic missiles.
It covers a radius of 3,728 miles over the Earth’s surface and 4,970 miles into space.

Russia has similar stations in Armavir (to be put on combat duty in June of this year), Lehtusi near St. Petersburg (already operational) and in Siberia, near Irkutsk (the first radar is operational, while the second is still under construction). There are also early warning radar systems in the Kola Peninsula (Dnestr-M and Daryal radars), the Komi Republic (Daryal radar), Belarus (Volga radar) and Kazakhstan (Dnepr and Dnestr radars). (Read more)