Balkhash Radar Station


Balkhash Radar Station is the site of two generations of Soviet and Russian early warning radars. It is located on the west coast of Lake Balkhash near Sary Shagan test site in Kazakhstan. Although it was used for monitoring satellites in low Earth orbit it was mainly a key part of the Russian system of warning against missile attack. It provided coverage of western and central China, India, Pakistan and submarine missile launches in the Bay of Bengal. There have been six radars at this site, although only one was operational in 2012, and it was run by the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces.
The military town for the station is called Balkhash-9. The station is east of the village of Gulshat in Karagandy Province and north east of Priozersk, the main town for Sary Shagan.

Space surveillance

Balkhash was founded as OS-2, a space surveillance site with four Dnestr radar stations, which were started in 1964 and tested in 1968. It could detect satellites at an altitude of up to. The prototype Dnestr radar, TsSO-P, was built nearby on the Sary Shagan test site.
In 1967-8 a Dnepr early warning radar was started adjacent to the 4 Dnestr radars and it was commissioned in the early 1970s.
The Dnepr radar was the last functioning radar on the site.
RadarCoordinatesAzimuthTypeBuiltDetails
Radar 1270Dnestr1964-1970Modernised to Dnestr-M. Operation 1970. Decommissioned September 1995. Derelict.
Radar 2270Dnestr1964-1968Operational 1968. Decommissioned January 1984. Derelict.
Radar 360Dnestr1964-1968Operational 1968. Decommissioned January 1984. Derelict.
Radar 460Dnestr1964-1968Operational 1968. Decommissioned September 1988. Derelict.
Radar 5180, 124Dnepr1968-1972Operational 1972. Modernised to Dnepr. Operational from 1974. Removed from combat alert in June 2020.

Second generation Daryal radar

Balkhash had a Daryal-U radar, a bistatic phased-array early warning radar consisting of two separate large phased-array antennas apart. The transmitter array was and the receiver was in size. The system is a VHF system operating at a wavelength of 1.5 to 2 meters. The claimed range of a Daryal installation is.
Originally, at least seven Daryal facilities were planned, however, only the first two facilities completed, Pechora and Gabala, were ever operational. Two Daryal-U type were to be built at Balkhash and Mishelevka, Irkutsk, neither were completed before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
CoordinatesAzimuthTypeBuilt
transmitter
receiver		152° Daryal-U1982-1994

The Balkhash Daryal started in 1982. Some testing started in 1991 and then stopped in 1994. In 2002 the never operational radar transferred to Kazakhstan who were left with the responsibility to demolish it. The radar was heavily looted and the receiver building burnt down in September 2004. It further collapsed whilst being looted in January 2010, killing one.
The Daryal contained organic pollutant polychlorinated biphenyl in its capacitors. The Kazakh government allocated $7 million to dispose of these and former Kazakh environment minister Nurlan Iskakov was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to four years in prison relating to this money in 2009.