The other day Yuzhnoye State Design Office celebrated the delivery of unique multipurpose satellite Okean-O into orbit 20 years ago. Weighing over 6 tons, it was the heaviest and most sophisticated satellite developed in Yuzhnoye. The satellite was designed for comprehensive studies concerning Earth remote sensing: exploration of natural resources and the World Ocean, analysis of issues related to the exploitation of natural resources, environmental monitoring, emergency warning and control.

On 17th of July 1999, a Zenit launch vehicle delivered Okean-O from Baikonur Cosmodrome into a sun synchronous orbit. The satellite was fitted out with onboard radar, radiometric, and optoelectronic equipment operating in visible and infrared light, a wide-band radio link, and data acquisition and transmission equipment for optical and microwave survey with low, medium, and high resolution.

The orbit lifetime of Okean-O was two and a half years during which it has made and sent dozens of thousands of high-resolution images for 74 customers.

Satellite «Okean-O»

The data sent from the satellite were used for different purposes: safe ship navigation and finding of the most appropriate routes in respect to the ice conditions, detection of contaminated areas on the surface of seas and oceans, exploration of continental shelf, determination and forecast of the World Ocean’s thermodynamic behavior, determination of windfields, liquid water content of clouds and precipitation areas and intensity, determination of ice cover condition, monitoring of soil and vegetation conditions, detection of forest and grass fires, finding of oil and gas deposits and those of other natural resources, contact information acquisition from seaborne data platforms and transmission to processing centers. The quick data sending from space enabled Ukraine to deal successfully with lots of scientific and practical issues of natural resources exploitation.

On July 17 this year, Yuzhnoye State Design Office held a round table dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Okean-O orbiting. The event was attended by the veteran employees of Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash who were directly involved in the development and operation of this advanced for its time satellite.

The participants recalled the history of the satellite’s development and operation in orbit, creative solutions that had been found to meet the challenges, and good teamwork between Yuzhnoye specialists and the entire space industry.

It was remarked that lightweight space launchers developed in Yuzhnoye have opened new possibilities for space researches that started expanding in the early 1960s. Scientific, military, and economic issues needed a wider variety and larger number of satellites. This became the reason for Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash to appoint special departments for spacecraft design and production. Broadscale research and exploration of the Sun, Earth and near-earth space were carried out using automated satellites built on a unified platform developed in Yuzhnoye.

During discussions, the participants talked about the first use of a remote measuring station of domestic origin in the Sultanate of Oman (the station was used for fast sending of telemetry data of the terminal satellite injection phase to the flight control center).

Applying the acquired experience and advanced technologies, the spacecraft design department of Yuzhnoye State Design Office today keeps on developing Earth remote sensing satellites such as Sich 2-1, Sich-2M, and Sat4EO for surveillance and detailed and most detailed optical observation, Microsat, CubeSat, GS-1, and Aerosol-UA for scientific and technology demonstration purposes.

Satellite «Sich-2M»

Besides, the spacecraft design department is developing a platform of a geostationary satellite for link with the main electrical rocket propulsion system. The platform will become a base for the development of communications satellites operating on a geostationary orbit.

The development of a reusable orbital spaceplane for cargo and passenger transportation to low earth orbits and back is in progress in Yuzhnoye.

The design office is also working on a multipurpose space transportation module to provide in-orbit services for customer satellites (in-orbit inspection, transfer to a required orbit slot, station keeping in specified orbital slots, transfer to the design orbit in case of delivery to an-off-design orbit, transfer to a disposal orbit).