How the Soviet Union listened the rest of the world

The secrets of “Saturn”

In Latvia, near Ventspils, by the riverside of the Irbe, there is the “Large Dish” or radio telescope, which is the largest object of its kind in Northern Europe and the eighth largest in the world. It was a completely unknown and secret object to the public, which, although true, was already visible from a distance, but its use was known only to those who worked there.

Photo: SCANPIX, NASA, Valērijs Bezrukovs (VIRAC)

The “large dish” was often called – “Saturn”, 400, radio telescope THA 400 or RT-32. Like a well-cherished child, also has several words. This and 3 smaller similar “dishes” formed a significant part of the military town called “Star” (Russian: Звезда), and the information that changed around it was marked with the stamp “State Secret” in the Soviet Union. It was not Skrunda’s “crooked house wall”, which was already known to everyone at that time.

What was there in the forest near Irbene?

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Earth’s artificial satellites began to be sent into space. Among other things, the space programs of the two great powers, the USSR and the United States, had made the reconnaissance of the enemy’s spacecraft and the listening of conversations one of their tasks. The installation of such systems – the US SPADATS (Space Detection and Tracking System) and the USSR СККП (Системы конмрочяскего пространства) in both countries began almost simultaneously.

In accordance with the regulations of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, the first such centre was established on November 15, 1962, on the basis of the Special Computing Centre No. 4, and in the summer of 1967, 649th Radio and Intelligence Station (or military station  51429) construction work. In the military communication system, the call sign of the object was Mink (Russian: Норка).

Along with the technical buildings, there was also a barrack, a residential building for officers, a club, a hotel and other infrastructure. The military unit was under the direct control of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (Russian: ГРУ – Главное разведывательное управление). In addition, the operational activities of the military station were duplicated by the KGB, whose small station (military station 93364) operated in the same technical building as the main military station. On behalf of his first commander, Mogila, they were called Mogilevians. Nothing more was known about them…

Three large antenna complexes or, as they used to say, pylons on site at the time (Russian: пилон) were created. The diameter of the “Uranus” mirror was 8 m, that of “Pluto” was 16 m and that of “Saturn” was 32 m. Masculine names were chosen that were compared to planets or gods, and that already spoke for itself. In addition, there were several other receiving antennas, such as “Mercury,” on the roof of the technical building.

The “Star” system in the 1970s consisted of stations located in 11 different parts of the world: 7 in the Soviet Union, the rest in Cuba, Vietnam, Burma and Mongolia. All incoming news was combined in the so-called Russian Pentagon, located in Russia, about 2 kilometers from the city of Klimovsk. The Cuban station provided most of the information, or about 70%.

And more precisely?

The operational task of the 649th Radio and Space Intelligence Station was, so to speak, to intercept the opponent’s communications, literally “interception” (перехват in Russian), and this term describes the work to be done very vividly. Working here, it was possible to do this operational work for years. Our “clients” were mainly the US State Department, the Navy, the Air Force and NATO units, as well as all “other side” strategic structures. The largest station, “Saturn”, was significant both literally and indirectly - the concrete pylon, on which the huge centimeter of radio waves was based, was 25 m high. It was planned that together with such a large antenna the whole structure would keep the wind strength up to 40 m/ s! The “dish”, which moved majestically at night with the red position lights, made a very strong impression. Especially when it “clung to the object” by a millimeter. It was not even conceivable that the moving part of the antenna complex weighed 600 tons! The antenna itself, together with the lower frame, weighed 58 tons. The parabolic mirror consisted of aluminum plates attached to a steel frame, but the diameter of the reflector above the parabola was 2.5 m. The antenna revolved around a vertical axis of -330 ° to + 330 °, and the angle of inclination with respect to the azimuth could be varied from -1 ° to 97 °. The mirror was modified by a powerful system of AC and DC electric motors. The very large horizontal gear of the transition mechanism was also noteworthy – its diameter was 5 meters. A special program was used to direct the antenna and hold the object, which also took the Earth’s movement into account. Russia’s paradox, however, was that many of the electronic devices that turned on “Saturn’s” control system in 1974 had the HP (Hewlett-Packard) logo, which were manufactured in the United States. They were completely new and not widely used. The fact that the signal inside the station was routed through a special and silver-plated tube from the inside (Russian: волновод) did not surprise anyone in the case of “Saturn”… 

“Pluto”, a medium-sized antenna complex, was located in the western part of the army. “Saturn” and “Pluto” were mainly aimed at satellites in geostationary orbit, roughly above the Mediterranean-North Africa.

The two largest “dishes” with the technical building were connected to the underground passage– there were communication and electric cables. The entrance was only for selected soldiers from the technical service. The smallest “large dish”, the “Uranus”” with an 8-meter mirror, was located next to the technical building and usually operated in search mode.

What was done in the operator's room of the antenna complexes?

“Pluto” had 3 items.

1. Aspect or spectrum analyzer was able to distinguish between free and scrambled channels of listening points;
2. The handset consisted of tuning hardware in the main body, signal demodulators and recording devices. For recording purposes, large and powerful stationary 32 kg tape recorders with three motors and three sound heads operated. The speed of the magnetic tape was up to 76 cm/s. The receiving devices allowed receiving the signal with quite high quality;
3. Spy or search item. “Pluto” listened to the communications of the Mediterranean, with many texts in Italian and less often in English. It was tuned mostly to one artificial Earth satellite, codenamed Dawn. Texts in Italian, as long as some “keywords” could not really be typed in them, were usually transferred to the trashbox – according to modern understanding.

The information from the antenna complexes was sent to the technical building, where there was a “battle duty” (Russian: боевое дежурство) 24 hours a day, where both the clear text and the telegraph data were processed. A considerable amount of data encoded through commercial satellites was intercepted.

Telegraphs occasionally shot texts with 5 groups of letters without interruption, sometimes making it difficult to move between stacks of paper. The transmission of information to Moscow could not be delayed – it only took 5 minutes! Everything that was encrypted had to be transferred. Clear texts were simpler: people had to understand what they were talking about and they had to act accordingly. English was required, but in addition to that, there were always a couple of professional translators to consult with in case of any uncertainties.

Relevant keywords were identified that required immediate action. For example, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), (exercise), DSP (Defense Support Program), etc. For example, the intercepted text “TC1A stand by for exercise Flash Traffic”, which indeed consisted only of strategic keywords – is more than clear that people are preparing for training somewhere. The main body of information was also obtained from commercial sources. And the amount was big, very big.

Much ado about nothing

In “Saturn”as well as in the technical building, those interested could watch TV programs from several countries; listen to the world’s largest radio stations, etc. Those who worked there were never bored. Based on the above, however, it was necessary to be able to determine what and how to do it. In every possible place in the Soviet army, there were hanging excerpts stating that a “battle mission” was being carried out at all times. People had to be vigilant, in the deepest sense of the term, that all tasks, including the important “battle task”, would be accomplished without loss.

Apparently, one of the strategies of the strategic spy games was also that at the agreed time and place in the mass of information the military information could be imperceptibly flooded in the hope that it would be difficult to find. Both sides knew that the enemy’s military contact points were being tracked. It was also the “big spying job” 24/7/365.

In 1973, after listening to the first American space station, Skylab, it was learned, among other things that “soap is not foaming up there” – such information was also transmitted to Moscow. It was not enough that they were following each other on the ground; the Russians were also interested in information from space. For example, the Russian reconnaissance satellite “Kosmos 520” sent in 1972 gave the Americans reason to say that “we are currently lagging behind the Russians in deep space exploration.”* Or another example: the former Soviet-era “Almaz” space station (Soyuz-14) was sent to Skylab as an ally. In July 1974, the astronauts P. Popovičs and J. Artjuhins on board with the help of the special device “Sokol” showed that from now on it is possible to recognize the (hostile) space object also from another space station. Later, such a successful experiment was recognized as an achievement worthy of the USSR State Prize.

Obtaining any “space information”, including from the ground, was generally a high priority.

The interception of “Air Force One” communications, for example, could also be considered a small achievement of the great work of military station 51429. This pointed to security vulnerabilities in American intelligence systems. This time, whoever took a few sentences between the pilots and the air traffic controllers was given 10 days’ leave, while GRU specialists were given a strong encouragement to improve their listening skills. The information in the open text, so to speak, for internal use was actually known to quite a few, but it was not accepted to talk about it loudly.

Subsequent US technical intelligence reports that the “Mink” has intercepted the communications of all submarines based in Norwegian waters over a long period of time. It was called the “child of great concern” of the US technical intelligence service.

Oļegs Krivopalovs describes in his above-mentioned book “…we do not have the slightest overview of the American system SPADATS, its technical intelligence devices, their locations, operational tactical and technical data”. Quite a sad state secret, which over time has become public information.

From the 1980s onwards, US intelligence satellites increasingly began photographing 5,129 objects and almost every few days. Some of these photographs were published in 1995 in publications related to the space intelligence service of the former Soviet Union. As the technical capabilities evolved, it became increasingly clear to Americans how great/small the real threat the military station 51249 could pose to them, and in the 1980s, U.S. technical intelligence’s interest in such a “low-risk and outdated” facility waned.

Thus, in 1986, a mobile complex intelligence unit was introduced into the army, the capacity of which even exceeded that of “Saturn”. The mobile equipment had to be taken care of by officials who used and operated it to the best of their ability.

The new times brought an end

The gates of the military station No. 51429 were closed by its former inhabitants on August 1, 1994. Immediately, experts from the opposing side arrived at the former secret facility. For example, they were interested in the location and degree of wear of the gears of especially large antenna transmission mechanisms. Then they tried to determine in which direction the parabolas were most often directed. However, outdated information is useful in the same way.

Since the spring of 1994, a group of enthusiasts from the Latvian Academy of Sciences has been working on the renovation of “Saturn” or RT-32, the largest antenna complex. It was also the only complex whose parabola the previous owners did not take with them. Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Centre (VIRAC) was established. In 2011, at the initiative of the Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia, a grant was received from the European Regional Development Fund for the development purposes of the centre. Within the framework of the IKSA-Centrs project, in addition to the RT-32 antenna, it is also planned to reconstruct the RT-16. More information about the centre can be found here ( in latvian, english, russian ) and http://www.evlbi.org/. In June 2015, the reconstruction of the RT-32 mirror was completed and the parabola was raised again in the support tower.

The fact that the military station of the former Soviet Union space intelligence service was now withdrawn from the Republic of Latvia did not mean the end of its mission – everything goes on! For example, already in 2008 it was possible to read on the Internet:

“… Russia’s secret military object can be seen near the Estonian border, west of Pskov and north of the A-212 highway. According to The Economist, there is a satellite “dish” at least 66 feet in diameter. Near it 5 are smaller. The same place was completely empty 6 years ago.” (http://english.pravda.ru/world/europe/07-04-2008/104809-russian_military_base_estonia-0/).