The Contribution of Leningrad Specialists to the Creation of Floating Scientific-Measuring and Command-Measuring Complexes. Part II. Designing and Building Vessels for Tracking and Controlling Flights of Rocket and Space Technology and the Fate of th

The article analyzes the process of designing and creating specialized floating command and measurement complexes for the implementation of the USSR space program in the 1970- 1990s of the twentieth century. Particularly highlighted is the participation of scientists, designers, and shipbuilders of Leningrad in this work, since it was their efforts that carried out the bulk of the design work. Not only the organizations involved in these projects are identified but also specific design specialists and engineers who created telemetry and other equipment that was used to receive and transmit information from spacecraft as well as shipbuilders and workers who made and installed the marked equipment on ships. The most important tactical and technical characteristics of significant specialized equipment of floating command and measurement complexes are considered and presented in the necessary detail. The methods that made it possible to appreciably accelerate the design and construction of "space complexes" on ships are outlined, in particular, the use of existing ships and the completion of ships under construction that were not originally intended for these purposes. All work on the redesign and equipping of the ships built and being built was carried out in accordance with the requirements developed for floating command and measurement complexes. Special attention is paid to the design process of floating command and measurement complexes and measures for the development and implementation of camouflage measures to legalize their existence, in particular with ships operating in the North Atlantic. Separately and in sufficient detail, the authors talk about the transformation of attitudes towards the existence of the USSR space flotilla caused by a number of circumstances. The main one is the collapse of the USSR, which led to the fragmentation of a single complex of such vessels. All of this eventually led to the fact that the USSR space flotilla actually ceased to exist at the end of the twentieth century.