The Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation

About

The Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation (RGANTD), located in Moscow, holds a large collection of various archival documents related to the Soviet space program, which trace the development of domestic astronautics from the 1930s to the present day. The collection includes not only technical documentation, but also films, photographs and audio recordings of the historical achievements in rocketry and space travel.

The archive is housed in a 5-story building with an area of 2,500 square meters, where the documents are stored in special storerooms with automatic temperature and relative humidity control systems; it also includes a laboratory for microfilming and restoration of documents. More than 300,000 units reflecting the activities of at least 180 entities of space and military industry, scientific and technical complex of the country are stored in the premises of RGANTD.

Recently, the archive has expanded the system of document integration to all possible scientific and research materials of the modern Russian scientific industry. Now it integrates documents of both military and civilian organizations, which can be both public and commercial, as the priority of the RGANTD is to store as many documents as possible related to the history of domestic astronautics.

Film

There are more than 7,000 units of film documents stored at RGANTD. Among them are the activities of the first space R&D companies, the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, the preparation of manned flights, the first crew of astronauts and other unique historical events captured on film.

Photography

Currently, RGANTD possesses the largest domestic collection of space photos with more than 92,000 units, chronicling events from the first steps in astronautics to the present day.

For the purpose of preservation, the photographic documents on nitro stock are transferred to non-flammable triacetate film, the images are constantly checked physically and chemically, backup copies of the most valuable documents are made, and the user fund is constantly expanded.

Audio

The audio collection includes more than 9,000 audio documents: speeches, interviews, cover stories and lectures. Since 1988, when the Council of Ministers of the USSR signed the decree that the Space Documentation Center (now RGANTD) should collect, store and publish the memoirs of space veterans, more than 250 recordings have been made. A special biographical and research database was created.

In addition, the audio collection includes communication sessions between the crews and the Space Monitoring Center, meetings of state commissions, press conferences for foreign and domestic journalists, meetings dedicated to special occasions, scientific seminars, memoirs of experts in the rocket and space industry. Of particular value are the archived communication sessions, where you can listen to the interactions of all the space crews from 1961 to 1993.