THE RUSSIAN STATE ARCHIVE OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION (RGANTD)

A R C H I V E   H I S T O R Y

The Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation has been known by several names since its beginning in 1974:

• 1974 - The USSR Center for Space Documentation.
• 1992 - The Russian Scientific and Research Center for Space Documentation.
• 1995 - The Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation with an affiliate archive in Samara.

The Russian Scientific and Research Center for Space Documentation began in 1974 following the appeal of scientists, experts and advocacy groups to the leaders of the country. The respective Regulation of the Government was signed on April 30, 1974 and the State Center for Storing Space Documentation was set up. It was the only state archive with all types of documents related to the history of domestic rocket and space technology, history of space exploration, etc. which was committed to choose and store documents, maintain special conservation research. The stock funds of the Center included documents deposited by companies that took part in space activities, by mass media; as well as private archives of experts in rocket and space equipment, of astronauts; memoirs of scientists and researchers; materials that were compiled by the Center on its own initiative.

The Archives store documents of various types (completion reports on scientific, research, design works, films, photos, audio- and video materials, telemetric data) which allow to track the development of domestic astronautics for the period from 1930s till today, including the all major aspects of the domestic space program and stages of conquering space using automatic space vehicles, manned spaceships and orbital stations.

The Russian State Archives of Scientific and Technical Documentation (RGANTD) were set up in accordance with the Regulation of the Russian Federation Government # 575 dated 09. 09. 1995 on the basis of the Russian Scientific and Research Center for Space Documentation in Moscow and the Russian State Archives of Scientific and Technical Documentation in Samara.

Facing the new reality, the RGANTD enlarged the document integration system to include all possible scientific and research materials from 20 industries of the country, from businesses of the State Committee on War Industry.

At present the Archives integrate documents from both military and civil entities which can be both public and commercial because the RGANDT priority is to store as many documents related to the history of domestic astronautics as possible.