Polyus Combat Sat
Cutaway of the Polyus 1 space weapons platform.
Credit: © Mark Wade
Article Number: 17F19DM. Code Name: Skif-DM. Class: Military. Type: ASAT. Destination: Space Station Orbit. Nation: Russia. Manufacturer: Chelomei.

In 1985, it became clear that the Energia launch vehicle would be ready for launch before the Buran space shuttle that was its intended payload. Therefore Ministry of General Machine Building (MOM) issued a resolution ordering the launch of Energia with a mock-up of a spacecraft in the 100 tonne class. In July 1985 General Designer D A Polukhin called together his workers and noted that MOM Minister O D Baklanov had given them the assignment of producing a 100 tonne 'functional mockup' satellite by September 1986. It would normally take five years to develop such a spacecraft, and they had only one year - therefore it would have to be greatly simplified. The systems in development for the next generation of spacecraft at that time consisted only of equipment items in test configuration. KB Salyut had a range of spacecraft in production, including the 20-tonne TKS manned logistics vehicle. The Skif-D 100-tonne space platform was only in the design and drawing stage. The bureau proposed to create a spacecraft from a test stand version of the TKS mated to a mock-up built to the Skif-D drawings. Several modules and subsystems were also borrowed from the Buran. Major subcontractors included NPO Elektropribor, NPO Radiopribor, NPO Digital Mechanics, NIIMASh, KBKhM, and the Progress Factory. On 19 August 1985, MOM issued the detailed schedule for the spacecraft's completion. The Skif-D and all subsystems were delivered to Baikonur in August 1986. From August 1986 to January 1987 the Skif-DM underwent integration and final tests at the space centre. The Polyus testbed contained means of defence against both ASAT weapons and beam weapons, though according to Kornilov's article these were only meant to conduct approach and docking tests. A cannon was mounted on Polyus to defend against ASAT weapons. An optical sighting system for the defensive cannon was included in addition to a sighting radar. By this means hostile ASAT weapons could be tracked without generating traceable signals. Experiments to check the efficiency of barium clouds in diffusing particle beams were also to have been conducted with Polyus. The spacecraft was about 37 meters in length, 4.1 meters in diameter and weighed about 80 metric tons.





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