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The Military Space Forces (VKS) are the branch of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation responsible for military space operations. Established on August 10, 1992, following the breakup of the Soviet Union and the creation of the Russian Armed Forces^[1], the VKS shares control of the Baikonur Cosmodrome with the Russian Federal Space Agency. The VKS also operate the Plesetsk Cosmodrome and the Svobodn’y Cosmodrome.

The Space Forces were established as a separate Soviet Armed Forces branch in 1982, but incorporated into the Strategic Rocket Forces in 1997. Russian Public TV said of the merger:

However, slightly over three years ago, it appeared to some-one, that, with a view to saving funds, it would be more sensible to strip the Military Space Forces of their independence and subordinate them to the Strategic Missile Troops - which has been done. In just the same way the country's air defence forces were made subordinate to the air force. Under the slogan of "optimizing", but, essentially, reducing the officer corps of the armed forces, the Military Space Forces were simply merged with the Strategic Missile Troops. In this way the missilemen command remained in their places virtually in full and almost the entire elite of military engineers were dispersed from the space forces. The military base, too, was destroyed. In the building of the Military Space Forces headquarters on Kaluga Square [Kaluzhskaya ploshchad], the very expensive fibre optic cable necessary for communicating with space facilities was ripped out. Afterwards, this decision was deemed to have been erroneous.^[2]

The Russian Space Forces were officially reborn on June 1, 2001 as an independent section of the Russian military. They regained independence under one of the many military reorganisation plans of the mid-late 1990s. Colonel General Anatoly Perminov was appointed to lead the new Space Forces.^[3]

The main tasks of the Russian Space Forces are informing the higher political leaders and military commanders of missile attacks as soon as possible, ballistic missile defense, and the creation, deployment, maintenance and control of in-orbit space vehicles. For example, the Space Forces operate the GLONASS global positioning system; commander of the Space Forces Colonel General Vladimir Popovkin said in January 2006 that 18 GLONASS satellites would be in orbit by 2008 (the system is currently not fully operative.^[4]

Russian Space Forces minor emblem

Russian Space Forces major emblem

Formations of the Space Forces include the 3rd Missile-Space Defence Army, and a Division of Warning of Missile Attack, both with their headquarters at Solnechnogorsk near Moscow. Installations include the Qabala Radar in Azerbaijan, along with a number of other large warning radars, and the A-135 anti-ballistic missile system which protects Moscow.

There is also an optical tracking facility, the Okno (Window) complex^[5], near the town of Nurek in central Tajikistan,38°16′12″N 69°13′34″E / 38.27, 69.226 that is intended to monitor objects in space. The Okno is capable of tracking objects 40,000 kilometers (24,800 miles) from Earth, the space forces said in a statement carried by the Interfax-Military News Agency when it was put on duty in 2002.^[6] The facility involves telescope-like equipment housed in several large spheres, similar to the U.S. GEODSS system.

• Space Force on MOD RF Site