ADU-1000 antennas at Yevpatoria

Sven Grahn

Pictures of the truss mounted system of eight dishes for deep space tracking that has been used since the early space age for tracking Soviet space probes are well-publicised over the years. We now know that the system was called ADU-1000 and consisted of eight (8) 16 meter dishes. However, I recently ran across a picture of the system with a completely different front feed for the dishes (Picture on the right below). The usual pictures of the system show a Cassegrain system with subreflectors mounted on quadrapods in front of the dishes (picture on the left below). I have only seen one picture of the front fed system, reproduced below. There is a "shepheard's hook" waveguide which seems to be about 29-30 cm wide, i.e. about 11 inches which means that it could well be intended for the standard 770 MHz deep-space uplink! It seems reasonable to assume that this is the transmit antenna at the the so-called south station of the Yevpatoria deep-space communications complex. Thus, double reflector antennas are those for reception at the "North Station". (See "Yevpatoria - as the U.S. saw it in the 60's").
 
 

Cassegrain feed system on 8-dish antenna.
"North Station" receive antenna.

Front-fed system of 8 dishes.
"South Station" transmit antenna.

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