The history of observations of artificial Earth satellites (AES) in Kazakhstan began at the Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute in 1957 immediately after the launch ofthe first satellite. The same year, the Institute became a part of the Soviet Union’s satellite system optical observation stations network, designed to monitor the near-Earth space. For a number of years, started from 1967, at the institutes’ Laboratory of Artificial Earth Satellites Observations, lead by V.S. Matyagin, observations of automatic interplanetary stations, launched in the Moon, Mars and Venus directions had been conducted. In 1971, Valery Matyagin together with his team was awarded the USSR State Prize for the development of hardware, software and high-precision observations of artificial Earth satellites. During 1991-1996 years, a database and a Catalog of Geostationary Satellites (GSS), which included information on 259 GSSs, had been created and later printed, based on the observation results under the guidance of A.V. Didenko. Based on 1991-1999 observational results, the second edition of the catalog had been prepared and issued, which included information on 670 GSSs.
Since 2000, the observations of the GSS have been carried out using the Zeiss-1000 telescope, equipped with a modern CCD camera. At the same time, tracking and monitoring observations had been conducted at the newly created Assy-Turgen Observatory GSS observation site with the RC500 telescope made by AstroSib Company. Currently, the sector regularly monitors the group zone of Kazakhstani geostationary satellites. The geostationary zone in the longitude area in the vicinity of the Republic of Kazakhstan observation sites, where geostationary satellites provide communication, navigation and telecommunications for Russia, Central and South-East Asia territories is being monitored. This is facilitated by the suitable geographical location of the FAPHI observatories, since they are located at longitudes close to the 75° libration point longitude. This makes it possible to control virtually all passive and active geostationary satellites near the given libration point.
The work done in the sector on the American DSP-21, the Russian communication satellites Yamal-101 and Express AM-11, along with the Kazakhstan KazSat-1 satellite, can serve as good examples of the effective ground-based information application for the emergency situation analysis.
 |
 |
| Zeiss-1000 telescope, Tyan-Shan Observatory. |
RC500 telescope, Assy-Turgen Observatory. |