INMARSAT

The dish antennas of the Soviet Union's first international mari­ time satellite communications station, near Odessa, on the Black Sea, went into operation in 1984. One was directed towards the Indian Ocean, and the other to the Atlantic. Operational tests were made using the Intelsat 5 and Marecs A satellites in which pro­ longed telephone conversations were held with ships of the Soviet Ministry of Merchant Marine, including the Kazakhstan, Khudozh- nik Kustodiyev, Smolniy, and Aleksandr Pushkin. The Black Sea gas turbine vessel Kapitan Smirnov and the Baltic motor vessel Prismorsk, which at the time were in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans were also linked via the Odessa-space-ocean radio bridge. 20 The station was declared operational at the end of 1984. 21 22

Trials with the second Coast Earth Station (CES), at the port of Nakhodka in the Soviet Far East, began early in 1985 and the sta­ tion was due to become commercially operational later that year. It was fitted with Soviet electronic equipment but the antennas were supplied by Japan's Nippon Electric Industry Company. 23

The Odessa CES was used to link Soviet explorers at the Antarc­tic station of Molodezhnaya with the Soviet Union. 24

The status of various aspects of maritime communications, as of December 1, 1987, was presented in Inmarsat's house journal, Ocean Voice. 25

The Soviet Union, through its signatory Morsviazsputnik, is the seventh largest shareholder in Inmarsat with a 2.34 per cent share­holding. Only the United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Japan, France and Singapore of the 51 member countries have larger shareholdings. The Soviet Union's shareholding includes the initial investment of the Byelorussian and Ukranian SSRs.

Although no Soviet organization is listed as a producer of ship terminals, there is an entry for the Soviet Union in the Ship Ter­ minal Market table for the Inmarsat type-approved Volna-S model. 26 The 18 of these commissioning will bring the total to 173, with 2 more pending.

The CES at Odessa, serving the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and the one at Nakhodka, serving the Indian and Pacific Oceans, are both operational. No other Soviet CES is listed as being in the planning stages.

In terms of the number of ship Earth stations (SES), the Soviet Union, with 4.08 percent of the total, comes sixth behind the United States, the United Kingdom, Panama, Japan and Liberia. The distribution within the different categories is given in table 17.

References:

A . SOVIET SPACE PROGRAMS: 1981-87, SPACE SCIENCE, SPACE APPLICATIONS, MILITARY SPACE PROGRAMS, ADMINISTRATION, RESOURCE BURDEN, AND MASTER LOG OF SPACEFLIGHTS, Part 2, April 1989, Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 1989, Committee print 1981-87- part-2

20. Moscow for seamen, 0615 GMT, July 2, 1984.

21. TASS, 1833 GMT, Dec. 27, 1984.

22. Soviet television, 1530 GMT, Jan 30, 1985.

23. TASS, 1240 GMT, Feb. 6, 1985.

24. Moscow, 2004 GMT, Apr. 10, 1985.

25. Ocean Voice. Inmarsat. London, Jan. 1988. p. 23-26.

26. Ocean Voice, Apr. 1988, p. 30.