Photos

  • Радиотелескоп ТНА-400. Photo 1

Description

The first Soviet radio telescope, installed 21 kilometers from the city of Simferopol on the Crimean peninsula. The radio telescope began its work in 1962, its main purpose is to accompany the launches of automatic spacecraft designed to study the Moon, as well as other planets of the Solar System. The reflector diameter of the TNA-400 radio telescope is 32 meters.

Story

The need to build a large radio telescope in the Soviet Union was discussed in 1959. After the Government of the country adopted the Lunar Program, a need arose to communicate with an automatic device located at a sufficient distance from the Earth. A special design bureau of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute made a proposal to build just such a radio telescope with a reflector surface of about 200 square meters. The development of technical documentation for the construction of antenna complexes of this type began back in 1956. Based on the developed projects, two radio telescopes were built. The first radio telescope TNA-200 was built near Moscow, the second TNA-400, taking into account modifications of the first, was built near the village of Shkolnoye on the Crimean Peninsula.

The main work of TNA-400 was carried out within the framework of the Luna and Lunokhod programs. It was with this antenna complex that the first image was received from the surface of our satellite. The control center for automatic lunar probes was also located nearby. With the help of this control center, the devices were monitored within the framework of the Venus program. In 1968 and 1969, the TNA-400 was used to monitor the American Apollo space programs.

Today, the condition of the object is sad - of all the surviving buildings, only the antenna itself remains, the rest of the buildings - including the museum, the test site for lunar rovers, as well as administrative buildings were destroyed and the equipment was looted. According to available information, Roscosmos plans to restore the object in the future and use it for deep space communications in programs to study the planets of the solar system.

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