Centre for Outer Space Monitoring

821th Main Space Intelligence Centre
Главный центр разведки космической обстановки
Part of Russian Space Forces
Noginsk-9
821th Main Space Intelligence Centre
Coordinates	56°04′38″N 38°30′18″E / 56.077352°N 38.505063°E / 56.077352; 38.505063
Site history
Built	1971 (1971)

The 821st Main Space Intelligence Centre (Russian: Главный центр разведки космической обстановки, tr. GTsRKO) is the headquarters of the Russian military's space surveillance network, SKKP. The centre is part of the Russian Space Forces and receives intelligence from a network of reporting stations which includes the Russian missile attack early warning network as well as some stations only used for space surveillance such as Okno and Krona. The purpose of SKKP is to detect satellites, identify them and to discern their orbits. It maintains the Russian catalogue of space objects and provides data which could be used to support space launches, feed an anti-satellite programme and provide intelligence on hostile military satellites. It is the Russian equivalent of the United States Space Surveillance Network.

The centre is based in the military village of Noginsk-9 (Russian: Ногинск-9) about a kilometer to the south-west of the village of Dubrovo near Noginsk in Moscow Oblast. It was previously known as TsKKP (Цккп) from Russian: Центр контроля космического пространства, tr. Tsentr kontrolya kosmicheskogo prostranstva meaning 'centre for space monitoring'.

The idea of a space monitoring system originated in 1963 and the design was agreed upon in 1965. From the beginning it included civilian astronomical stations run by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The system needed to detect, identify and track satellites and create a satellite catalogue. The first satellite detection system consisted of eight Dnestr radars, four at Mishelevka in Siberia and four at Balkhash in the Kazakh SSR which provided information for the Istrebitel Sputnik anti-satellite system.

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