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turgid [soylentnews.org] writes:

In the Astronotes section of the Armagh Planetarium site, there is a story entitled Polyus: the Real Death Star? [armaghplanet.com]

In response to Ronald Reagan's announcement of the "Star Wars" anti-ballistic missile space-based defence system, the Soviet President Yuri Andropov approved Project Polyus-Skif, an orbital 1MW carbon dioxide laser capable of destroying ICBMs and other spacecraft.

Polyus-Skif was 37m long and over 4m wide, which was bigger even than Skylab. It was disguised as "Mir 2" to minimise suspicion from the general public. The USSR had to wait until the development of the Energia heavy lift rocket before the first satellite could be launched.

A prototype was flight-tested mounted on an Il-76 cargo plane, and it worked. However, it is not clear whether the satellite launched following the test was fully functional.

Perhaps fortunately, Polyus-Skif never made it into orbit. It fell out of the sky and burned up during launch on 15th may 1987.

Original Submission