OREANDA-NEWS. Shvabe is proud of the history of its achievements. In 2015, the Holding will celebrate 50 years since the creation of a unique high-precision astronomical installation for taking pictures of cosmic objects. Specialists of S. A. Zverev Krasnogorsk Plant took part in the development of the installation.

The launch of the first artificial satellites, the need to determine their trajectory parameters, and the country's lack of optical means of observation possessing the required penetrating power were the prerequisites for the creation of the high-precision astronomical installation.

In 1960, the Central Design Bureau of Krasnogorsk Mechanical Plant began to work according to the technical assignment of the Astrological Council of the Academy of Sciences of USSR on the creation of a high-precision astronomical installation designed for photographing artificial satellites of the Earth and space rockets in order to determine the current angular coordinates of their trajectories by means of binding to reference stars in the celestial sphere.

The basis of the concept model of the high-precision astronomical installation consisted in the work of an outstanding Soviet optician, the corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR D.D. Maksutov and the chief designer of the high-precision astronomical installation, laureate of the Lenin Prize, hero of socialist labor F.E. Sobolev relating to calculation and justification of the choice of the original triaxial parallactic mount and a large high aperture distortion-less catadioptric lens with a large field of view, which was later called "Astrodar".

The development of the design of the lens and primary mirror unit, calculation of reliefs, assembly, adjustment, and lens quality control were carried out at Krasnogorsk Mechanical Plant. Together with their colleagues from leading research institutes and companies of the country, the specialists of Krasnogorsk Mechanical Plant had to solve a number of complex technical and organizational issues.

In particular, for assembly and instrument production testing purposes a special high-altitude industrial building was built, and unique bench, control and adjustment equipment was developed and manufactured. As a result, in 1965 the enterprise created a unique astronomical device allowing the automation of such modes of high-precision astronomical installation as positioning the lens and chamber section into a given point of the trajectory, shutter speed and exposure control, and matching the recorded data with the universal time system.

"Regarding figures, the 'Astrodar' lens, created 50 years ago, had a primary mirror diameter of 1100 mm and focal distance of 701.3 mm, aperture ratio - 1: 1.4, field of view - 30°, and a sphere-type image surface with a radius of 700 mm. Frame size - 363x61.2 mm. These characteristics and inherent properties of the high-precision astronomical installation allowed it to be used to solve a wide range of problems in geodesy, geophysics, astronomy, as well as problems related to the study and exploration of outer space," said the head of the integrated design department of S.A. Zverev Krasnogorsk Plant Boris Maikov.

In 1973, for their great contribution to the creation of the high-precision astronomical installation, its development team was awarded the State Prize of the USSR. Among its laureates were the following specialists of S.A. Zverev Krasnogorsk Plant: F.E. Sobolev (posthumous), N.M. Egorov, S.A. Potanin, V.F. Krasavin, S.G. Kuznecov, V.N. Kharlamov.

Today, half a century after its creation, this device still helps determine the current positions of satellites and interplanetary spacecraft with an accuracy of 2 seconds and is able to take photos of objects with brightness of the sixteenth stellar magnitude. These high-precision astronomical installations generated more than one hundred thousand images, which, in particular, constitute the Russian catalog of geostationary cosmic objects.

Today, high-precision astronomical installations are operated at the Zvenigorod astronomical observatory and Gissar astronomical observatory of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan.