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Oko

The first-generation Oko system was qualitatively supplemented in the early 1990s by the launch of several satellites of the same type into geostationary orbit, which made it possible to expand the monitoring area of ??the space echelon from the predominantly continental US zone to all missile-hazardous regions, including seas and oceans, from where they can produce enemy submarine launches. The new geostationary constellation was named "Oko-1". The deployment of "Oka-1" began in 1991, the system was adopted in 1996.

The Oko-1 Russian satellite system for detecting the launches of the ICBMs, which began to be deployed since 1991, proved to be very unreliable and unsuccessful. Combined with a lack of funding, this led to the fact that the planned grouping of 11 satellites (7 in geostationary orbits, 4 on highly elliptical) was never created.

The USSR also relied on satellites in high-elliptical orbits. In this case, the satellite can hang over the target for about 6 hours a day, so a minimum of 4 satellites is required to continuously track the area. But at the same time, the altitude of the orbit is lower and requires less sensitive equipment. Somewhat later, the system was supplemented with geostationary satellites. The final version of the Oko-1 system would ideally include 7 geostationary satellites and 4 highly elliptical satellites. But the disintegration of the USSR did not allow the program to be fully realized: the first satellite was launched in 1991, and there were 8 launches in all. Unfortunately, the satellites of this system proved to be extremely poor - most of them did not work for two years after launching, although the expiry date was 5-7 years.

Although the first in-orbit tests of the Oko early warning spacecraft bus started with the launch of Kosmos 520 in 1972, the first missile detection sensors were reportedly not flown until 1976. The early Vidicon telescopes employed sensor diameters of 0.3-0.5 m with 4 degree fields-of-view for both IR (0.9-2.2 mm) wavelengths. Whereas the IR sensors successfully detected missiles in flight by late 1976, the UV sensors failed repeatedly during the 1976-1978 period and were then abandoned (Reference 86).

Subsquently Russia orbited the Kosmos series numbers 2411 and upwards with the latest Kosmos-2455 launched November 20, 2009 in what is believed to be the more advanced Oko (Eye) early warning satellites.

A total of 8 satellites were launched, most of them out of service after about 2 years (only 3 satellites fell within the range of the official "shelf life" of 5-7 years). In addition, the Oko-1 satellites were already out of date at the time of their appearance, so they could only record the very fact of launching the missile, but could not at the same time give information about the trajectory and the intended goal. The last geostationary satellite of the system failed in 2014.