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Exploring the Remarkable Globus INK: A Soviet Spacecraft Equipment

🧵 The TL;DR

The Globus INK is a remarkable Soviet spacecraft equipment from 1967 that used mechanical components to compute the position of Soyuz spacecrafts. It showed geographical features and the boundaries of the USSR and politically-aligned regions. After the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz project, it also showed dots indicating NASA communication sites. It had a drive motor to simulate a partial orbit and output the orbital position as a voltage.

    🔑 Key Points

  • Complex gear trains driven by solenoids moved the globe
  • Rotating along the dotted axis traces out the 51.8° orbit
  • Relays controlled the landing position motor, with pairs of diodes absorbing inductive kickback

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