Ken Shirriff in Elk: "For more about the internals of the Gl..."

How did Russian cosmonauts know where they were? The Globus INK (1967) showed the position of their Soyuz spacecraft on a rotating globe. It is an analog computer built from tiny gears. I reverse-engineered the wiring (which inconveniently had been cut) and we powered it up.

The Globus is driven by solenoids. We "overclocked" the Globus and ran it at 10 hertz instead of 1 hertz because its motion is too slow to see otherwise: 90 minutes for an orbit and 24 hours for the Earth to rotate. Here's a clip showing the Globus running at its correct speed.

For more about the internals of the Globus, see my blog post:
https://www.righto.com/2023/01/inside-globus-ink-mechanical-navigation.html

www.righto.com

Inside the Globus INK: a mechanical navigation computer for Soviet spaceflight

The Soviet space program used completely different controls and instruments from American spacecraft. One of the most interesting navigati...

February 23, 2023 at 5:45:50 PM

I love this stuff, so quirky and simple yet it was good enough to get people safely back from orbit.
Essentially, you could draw a straight line from the Antkiythera mechanism to this.

thanks for sharing these details. I’ve been fascinated by the Globus since seeing a reference & a few images years ago.

Wow, this was an incredible read! Thank you for posting.