According to Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, however, the damaged facility, located at the Serpukhov-15 military base near the village of Kurilovo some 200 kilometers southwest of Moscow, will be restored in the next two or three weeks.
Klebanov told reporters in Moscow on May 11 that equipment from backup facilities is being shipped to Golitsyno-15 to help make repairs.
The deputy prime minister insisted that "it is wrong to say" that the Space Forces lost control of the satellites, but admitted that they could only periodically communicate with and download data from the spacecraft May 11 as a result of what he called an "unpleasant, but not tragic, accident."
Space Forces commander Col. General Anatoly Perminov said May 10 his people were having trouble controlling the satellites. "As a result of the fire, we do not have constant contact with four satellites," he said in remarks televised on Russian national channels. Perminov insisted that "the entire satellite control system is working normally" despite the fire.
The general would not reveal the mission performed by the four satellites, but said control of the satellites will be assumed by a backup center "in the nearest future."
Space Forces spokesman Sergei Derevyashkin also declined to describe the satellites mission when reached by phone May 11.
Derevyashkin would not say why it took hours to transfer command of the four satellites to the control and relay facility at the Golitsyno-2 military base outside Moscow, even though backup facilities are supposed to take over control automatically.
According to Pavel Podvig, a space expert with the Center for Arms Control, Energy, and Environmental Studies, at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the MIT Security Studies Program, the four affected satellites probably are the space component of the early-warning system run by the missile and space defense component of the Russian Space Forces.
"It seems likely that the fire resulted in Russia's losing the space-based component of its early-warning network," Podvig wrote in a statement to Space News May 10. "However, this would not result in any serious immediate degradation of its early-warning capability, since the satellites capabilities were limited to detecting launches from U.S. territory.
It is "very likely" that normal operations of the four satellites have been disrupted. In particular, the equipment that processes information from satellites was probably affected, he said.
Podvig identified the satellites as Cosmos-2340, Cosmos-2341, Cosmos-2351 and Cosmos-2368. Restoring full data processing and early-warning capabilities may take "much longer" than regaining basic contact with the satellites. Podvig wrote.
The four satellites are in highly elliptical orbits to monitor U.S. territory for possible launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles, but are not capable of monitoring oceans to spot ballistic missiles launched from U.S. submarines, according to Podvig.
Podvig said "the loss of early-warning capability would not have any serious impact on Russia's (or any other country's) security" as there is no real threat of a ballistic missile attack from either U.S. or Russia now that the Cold War is over.
"As for any mistake that would result from the current loss of early warning capability in space, the probability of it was arguably made only smaller [by the control facility fire]. As for the possibility that such a mistake would have serious consequences, such as an accidental launch of missiles, it did not exist in the first place and was not made any more likely," Podvig wrote.
The fire broke out at 2:20 a.m. Moscow time May 10, probably after one of the power cables inside the buildings short-circuited, an official at the Kaluga region police headquarters said in a phone interview on May 10.
The official said 100 firefighters had "some difficulty" putting away the blaze as flames spread quickly inside the main control building. The 50-meter tall building is topped by a dome and is flanked by three auxiliary control facilities inside the fenced security premises, according to television footage shown on Russia's national channels on May 10.
According to a May 11 news release from the Space Forces, it took until 6:30 p.m. to extinguish the fire, after which high-level officials investigated the damage to the facility. Military and dual-use satellites account for more than 60 percent of Russias satellite fleet of more than 110 craft, according to figures from the Strategic Missile Forces, which used to incorporate the Space Forces until early this year.
More than 70 percent of Russias satellites have surpassed their expected service lives, Yuri Koptev, director general of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, told a recent press conference in Moscow.
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