Akademik Sergei Korolev

A starboard quarter view of the Soviet Korolev class civilian space associated ship Akademik Sergei Korolev underway. (1/1/1988)
Class overview
Name: Korolev (Soviet Project 1908)
Builders: Black Sea Shipyard, Nikolayev
Operators: Academy of Sciences
Completed: 1
Retired: 1
General characteristics Akademik Sergei Korolev
Type: SESS
Tonnage: 7,067 DWT
Displacement: 17,115 tons standard, 21,250 tons full load
Length: 596 ft (182 m)
Beam: 82 ft (25 m)
Draft: 26 ft (7.9 m)
Propulsion: 1 diesel (Bryansk/Burmeister & Wain); 12,000 hp (8,900 kW), 1 shaft
Speed: 17.5 knots (32 km/h)
Range: 22,500 nmi (41,670 km) at 16 knots (30 km/h)
Complement: approx. 190 + 170 scientist-technicians
Sensors and
processing systems:
  • 2 Don-Kay (Navigation);
  • Tracking and communications equipment includes Quad Ring, Ship Bowl, Ship Globe, and Vee Tube antennas.

The Akademik Sergei Korolev (Russian: Академик Сергей Королев) was a space control-monitoring ship constructed in 1970 to support the Soviet space program. Named after Sergei Korolev, the head Soviet rocket engineer and designer during the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s, the ship also conducted upper atmosphere and outer space research.[1]

In Soviet times, the Akademik Sergei Korolev was a large communications ship which was part of a fleet of communications ships. These ships greatly extended the tracking range when the orbits of cosmonauts and unmanned missions were not within range of Soviet land-based tracking stations.[2] The ship mainly operated in the Atlantic Ocean monitoring spacecraft trajectory, telemetry data, and guaranteed a communications link with the cosmonauts.[3]

The ship had about 1200 accommodations, including 79 laboratories, in which 188 scientific workers performed their duties.[3]

In 1975, the ship was a part of the Soviet-American Apollo-Soyuz joint test program.[4]

Sold for scrapping and renamed OROL, arriving at Alang on 18th August 1996

See also

References

  1. ↑ Norman Polmar, Guide to the Soviet Navy, Fourth Edition (1986), United States Naval Institute, Annapolis Maryland, ISBN 0-87021-240-0
  2. ↑ Tracking sites and ships, Komsmonavtka Website, Retrieved 6/13/2008
  3. 1 2 Askar, Research ship Akademik Sergey Korolev (2006), (Russian) Online, Accessed 6/14/2008
  4. ↑ SP-4209 The Partnership: A History of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, (U.S.) NASA, Online Article

External links

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