Around the mid-60s, the USSR government was already closely looking at near-earth orbit. Intelligence reported that the Americans had the MOL project. Such a space station was supposed to be able not only to conduct electronic reconnaissance, but also to control military equipment directly from orbit. Naturally, the country of the Soviets could not stand aside: in OKB-52, under the leadership of Chelobei, the development of its own combat station began.
Attack insurance
Such an important spacecraft needed protection. In the USSR, they were afraid that the Americans could simply steal the new station directly from orbit, and therefore they decided to equip the Almaz project with a modified Nudelman-Richter cannon, NR-23. Already the second generation of OPS (orbital manned stations) was supposed to be armed more seriously: the Shield-2 system and two space-to-space missiles were supposed to scare any enemy.
Drone with teeth
The OKB-52 initially intended to design the station taking into account the cosmonaut-pilot. But work in this direction had to be stopped in 1978, and already TsKBM began developing an unmanned station. In addition to cannons, a system of radar remote sensing of the Earth was mounted on the spacecraft.
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Bird without wing
At the beginning of 1981, the automatic station OPS-4 was completely ready for launch. However, the machine had to gather dust in the shops near the Baikonur cosmodrome for several more years - numerous delays arose for purely economic reasons.
Specifications
Weight: 18.55 t
Size: 15m
Diameter: 4.5
Power: 2.4 kW
Power sources: solar panels 86sq.m
Orientation: triaxial
Active life: 30 months.
Armament: large-caliber cannon NR-23
First start
But the project was not abandoned. On November 29, 1986, the first attempt was made to launch a combat station into space from the Baikonur cosmodrome. By that time, the project was already called "Almaz-T". Unfortunately, the control systems of the Proton launch vehicle failed and the near-earth orbit again found itself without a reliable communist guard.
Go
A year later, on July 25, 1987, the launch took place. For the sake of secrecy, the automatic station was again renamed Kosmos-1870 and thrown into space. The station really turned out to be useful: the radar images of the earth's surface obtained from the satellite were used in the interests of the defense and economy of the USSR.
End of Star Wars
Another modification of the OPS ("Almaz-1") was launched into orbit on March 31, 1991. The OPS was equipped with the most modern on-board equipment at that time, and for protection they installed the same heavy machine gun NR-23. As planned, the station was supposed to be replaced by Almaz-2 at the combat post, but the deplorable state of the Russian economy after the collapse of the USSR did not allow the program to continue developing. At least officially we have no combat stations in orbit. Officially.