Main Centre for Missile Attack Warning

820th Main Centre for Missile Attack Warning
Главный центр предупреждения о ракетном нападении
Part of Russian Space Forces
Solnechnogorsk-7
820th Main Centre for Missile Attack Warning
Coordinates	56°14′29″N 37°00′50″E / 56.241389°N 37.013889°E / 56.241389; 37.013889
Site history
Built	1971 (1971)

The 820th Main Centre for Missile Attack Warning (Russian: Главный центр предупреждения о ракетном нападении (Гцпрн), tr. GTsPRN) is the Russian early warning network against ballistic missile attack. It has headquarters in the village of Timonovo near Solnechnogorsk outside Moscow and is part of the Russian Space Forces. The centre consists of a network of early warning radar stations which transmit their data to the control centre near Solnechnogorsk. Other information comes from the early warning Oko satellites and the Don-2N missile defence radar. Information from the centre could be used for a launch on warning nuclear missile attack or to engage the A-135 anti-ballistic missile system.

The centre is the control centre for the radar network. Here signals from every station are received and, if necessary, a message can be sent to the presidential 'nuclear briefcase' for authorisation to use nuclear weapons. There is a communications centre which has a number of backup channels to communicate with each radar station. If a ballistic missile attack is discovered the duty commander reports this to the central command post of the General Staff. At the same time the duty engineer reports it to the commander of the Aerospace Defence Forces, for redundancy.

Information comes from the radar network, early warning satellites and the space surveillance network SKKP. The centre also discovers and monitors space objects through the use of radar which are fed into the SKKP network.

The Russian missile warning system originates in the Soviet Union and is often known by its Soviet initials SPRN (СПРН), from Russian: Система предупреждения о ракетном нападении, tr. Sistema preduprezhdeniya o raketnom napadenii 'Missile attack warning system'. It started on 15 February 1971 as two Dnestr-M radars at Olenegorsk and Skrunda with a command post in Solnechnogorsk. It expanded by the addition of Dnestr-M radars in Mishelevka and Balkhash in 1973, a Dnepr radar in Sevastopol in 1975 and another in Mukachevo in 1977. The Daugava radar, a Daryal receiver, started operations in 1975 at Olenegorsk. In 1978 an upgraded warning system called Крокус (Krokus) was introduced.

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