IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2023 - 18

According to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency assessment,
RORSATs were able to track U.S. air carriers in
good sea and weather conditions; however, they became
useless otherwise. These spacecraft were so tremendously
expensive and slow in production that their launches
were usually tied to the massive naval drills of the U.S.
and NATO fleets, thus leaving lengthy gaps in air carrier
tracking. By the end of the 1980s, the USSR SLBMs had
improved their range and accuracy to the extent that the
submarines could stay on patrol just in the Sea of Okhotsk,
which obtained the name of " a submarine aquarium. "
Therefore, the RORSAT program was terminated in
1988, although the other part of the " Legenda " system,
higher-orbit electronic intelligence satellites (EORSATs),
survived, and their derivatives are still in operational use
by the Russian Navy [9].
For our story, it is interesting to admit that the frequency
of operation, the type of microwave source and antenna,
and the swath width of Kalmykov's RA-SLR and the " Chaika "
SLR were rather similar to each other. Kalmykov had
security clearance and should have known about the existence
of naval RORSATs designed by the rocket and missile
DB " Prikladnaya Mekhanika " (Applied Mechanics) in
Moscow (now Khrunichev State Co.). He could even know
about their design principles because EORSAT satellites
were designed at DBP and produced serially at the Yuzhmash
Industry in Dnipro. Moreover, he should know from
his IMH colleagues that the development of the signal processing
for SLR " Chaika " was facilitated by the Black Sea
experiments with its airborne analog on a dedicated turboprop
aircraft [24].
However, given the USSR spy mania and intensive and
even brutal rivalry between the rocket DBs, Kalmykov
could not know anything except general terms. Note
the difference in the satellite composition: vertical for
Cosmos-1500 versus longitudinal for RORSATs (see Figures
2 and 7). This was apparently connected to the flight
altitude; low-orbit RORSATs had to have a more " aerodynamic "
shape to reduce the effect of the atmosphere,
while Cosmos-1500 could instead neglect it. It is also important
that his SLR was developed 10 years later than
" Chaika " and integrated Kalmykov's multiyear collaboration
with IRE's theoreticians around the sea and ice
backscattering research. In terms of onboard signal processing,
Cosmos-1500 implemented two relatively new, at
least for the USSR space programs, operations: incoherent
integration of eight successive images along the swath
and compression of the image intensity dynamic range
across the swath using the automatic gain control. Additionally,
telemetric data on the current parameters of the
SLR units were also transmitted to the ground stations.
Therefore, the SLR of Cosmos-1500 can be safely considered
as an original instrument.
POST-HISTORY: FROM USSR AWARDS TO
A POSSIBLE IEEE MILESTONE
Two polar sea rescue missions of Cosmos-1500 gave a rare
chance to the USSR authorities to present the USSR space
program as a peaceful, truly useful, and efficient activity,
while in reality, it was heavily biased to military use, poorly
balanced, and plagued by the fierce rivalries of different
players, and it suffered from numerous accidents and catastrophes
[9]. These missions were broadly highlighted in the
USSR newspapers and on TV. Already in 1985, a full-size
copy of Cosmos-1500 was displayed in Moscow at a permanent
exhibition (Figure 10).
This publicity and attention helped obtain fair recognition
at the national level. In 1987, Kalmykov and his nine
colleagues were awarded the National Prize of Ukraine in
Science and Technology with the citation, " For the development
and implementation of radar methods of Earth
remote sensing from aerospace platforms. " The recognition
at the USSR level was restricted to several state orders,
the highest of which, Lenin's Order, was given to the same
IRE director who nearly pushed Kalmykov out in 1979. For
comparison, the developers of the secret naval SLR " Chaika "
and the whole system " Legenda " were awarded, despite
its low efficiency and RORSAT disasters, a secret Lenin's
Prize of the USSR.
As mentioned previously, the design and development
FIGURE 10. The spacecraft Cosmos-1500 with microwave equipment
for remote sensing of Earth at the permanent USSR Exhibition
of Achievements of National Economy in 1985. (Source: [4].)
18
of the X-band orbital RA-SLR of Cosmos-1500 led to the successful
overcoming of a wide range of scientific and technical
problems. This enabled the technology transfer to the
IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2023
IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2023

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