A few notes.
- In response to Putin’s invitation to think up a name for the laser complex, a public vote was held which resulted in the system being called Peresvet, which is a photographic term meaning “overexposure”, but also refers to a 14th century Russian Orthodox warrior monk named Aleksandr Peresvet who fought in a battle that signaled the end of the Mongol domination of medieval Russia.
...I mean, mad props. You've got the nerds happy, the nationalists happy and even the racists happy. That's like naming a missile intended to be launched at the British the "AGM-135 Tea Party" if "tea party" meant "massive explosion."
- They were published by an institute called the Russian Federal Nuclear Center – All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics (RFYaTs-VNIIEF or РФЯЦ-ВНИИЭФ in Cyrillic), which is based in Sarov (formerly Arzamas-16),
Arzamas-16 is the Russian equivalent of Los Alamos. Sakharov was there.
- Two of the court cases (in 2017–2018) were between the Ministry of Defense and a company called MAK Vympel
Vympel is basically Russian for "Raytheon."
- Adaptive optics systems typically use a beacon illuminator laser that creates an artificial guide star by shining a low-power laser into the atmosphere.
....well, tens of watts as opposed to megawatts. I talked to some of the guys at Palomar about adaptive optics and home use and they said "we have to tell the FAA every time we turn it on." The technology was developed at Sandia National Labs back in the early '90s, which is basically the practical arm of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
- RFYaTs-VNIIEF has a long history experimenting with this type of laser and considered it for use in the Soviet-era Terra-3 laser complex, an anti-missile laser system that never reached operational status.
- Underscoring its primary objective, the airplane had an emblem showing a laser beam hitting the Hubble Space Telescope, which was apparently supposed to represent a KH-11 reconnaissance satellite, believed to have a design similar to HST.
Pretty much documented to be the Hubble minus the rear instrumentation package with a slightly shorter focal length. That thing ain't shooting the Hubble, it's shooting a KH-11.
- Whatever the rationale for having at least three separate satellite dazzling/blinding systems, Russia clearly has a major interest in this type of directed energy counterspace technology, which has the advantage that it produces no space debris and may make it hard for the adversary to prove that its satellites have been affected or damaged as the result of a hostile act. The country also seems to have invested in both ground-based and space-based electronic warfare systems against satellites, another type of non-destructive counterspace technology. Still, all this has not stopped Russia from also developing more conventional kinetic ASAT weapons like the ground-launched Nudol and the air-launched Burevestnik systems.
A spectacular time to withdraw from the Open Skies treaty.