Damage to Irbene radio telescopes
Before leaving Irbene, the Soviet army damaged all radio telescope systems
There is a version that there was a plan to blow them up, but after the protests of radio astronomers and scientists, they remained intact / two contradictory versions of the blasting - one, the armies wanted to do it, the other - the successors of the war base from Latvia. Probably for fear that the departed may plan to return soon ... /. However, when leaving, the army damaged the antenna systems as much as they learned - the nails were healed in the cables, the electric motors were acid-coated, the control units were made unusable.
www.diggers.lv; www.necton.lv; www.ostrog.lv and other sources
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Zvaigznīte - Irbene military buildings
The 200-hectare site was once a top-secret military base occupied by military unit 51429.
Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Centre
Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Centre, also known as the Irbene Radio Telescope, is located in the former Soviet Army town of Irbene. The Space Intelligence Station ‘Zvaigznīte’ (Little Star) was once the army unit No. 51429. The total area of the object was 200 ha, but information about the object became publicly available only in 1993. Initially there were three antennas here, which the army used to intercept and listen-in on phone calls of the “hostile West”.
The radio astronomy centre in Irbene is currently the eighth largest in the world. It has a 32 m rotating parabolic antenna RT-32, which is the largest in Northern Europe and the eighth largest in the world, as well as a second 16 m antenna RTs-16. The centre studies space signals, and it has received a signal from as far as the Cygnus constellation. The tour includes a walk around the territory of the former army town of Irbene and a visit to an underground tunnel and the memorial place of the rocket designer Friedrich Zander in the building called ‘Kristāls’ (Cristal).
