Radio telescope at Irbene

Covering an area of 200 hectares, this is a formerly very secret military base which was used in Soviet times by military unit No. 51429. The facility was so secret that its existence was revealed only in 1993 – two years after the restoration of Latvia’s independence and one year before the withdrawal of the Russian military from the country. There were three large and important radio antennae here, used to listen in on phone calls in a very broad region. The focus was also on information related to the submarines, satellites and military bases of the Soviet Union’s enemies. The smallest of the antennae had a diameter of 10 metres. It was known as URAN, and it was dismantled and taken way when the Russian armed forces left the country. The other two antennae were known as PLUTON (16 metres) and SATURN (32 metres), and they were not dismantled. It has been suggested that the Russians planned to blow them up, but radio astronomers and scientists waged a protest, and they were left in place. As to the plan to blow up the systems, there are two possibilities – one version is that the withdrawing military wanted to do that, and the other is that the plan was proposed by those who took over the base afterward, possibly out of fear that the departing military forces might return someday. True, the Russians damaged the systems as much as possible before leaving, hammering nails into cables, pouring acid onto electrical systems, and destroying control systems altogether. The system was installed in the early 1970s and was of the same type as other systems which were installed beginning in the 1950s. There might have been some 20 bases of its kind in the Soviet Union. The largest antenna stood atop a 25-metre cement tower, with a total weight of 600 tonnes. All three antennae were connected to a subterranean system of tunnels, where the cable system, power system and transmission systems were all located. Military personnel also used the system. There was a large military housing system nearby, including several five-story buildings for military personnel and their families, as well as scientists. The radio telescope is currently being used for scientific purposes. Because it receives radio signals in the centimetre and millimetre range, it is used to study radio waves from the universe. The most distant registered signal came from a distance of 500 million light years.