Statements made at that time by Gorbachev confirm the impression left by this article and another by General Designer V.V. Pallo of Design Bureau Salyut that the Polyus was indeed a test bed for the Soviet counter measure to the United States "Stars Wars" program, an Orbital Weapons Platform. Platforms of this type would have been capable of delivering nuclear warheads from orbit to any point in the US in six minutes. Gorbachev pointedly called all US SDI technology "space strike" weapons and repeatedly warned that the Soviet response to Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) would be "asymmetrical" and that SDI was "destabilising". It appears that the nuclear warhead launch control system for the Orbital Weapons Platforms was being developed in a very rushed manner and the instability of the Orbital Weapons Platforms scared the Soviet leadership.
That passage plus the illustration in the link make it plain that this monstrosity also carried a load of nuke warheads, in absolute, total violation of the 1967 treaty. In addition to the laser, cannon and particle beam countermeasures. I have my doubts as to how capable the laser could have been with early eighties' stolen technology. If the story is really true then I gather it was sheer dumb luck that this unclean thing splashed in the remote south pacific without raising any eyebrows. Am I correct in assuming it's load of warheads lie undisturbed on the abyssal plain?
If anything, it's like the weapon in Space Cowboys. I knew the Energia was launched one time before the one-and-only unmanned Buran flight but no mention was ever made of the payload carried. It does seem a tragedy that Energia is now on the junk heap of history. Here we have a heavy lift Saturn V category booster without having to bother with the damn shuttle. You could put a respectable sized space station up in a single trip (a la Skylab).
Apparently, no nikes were loded onto the unit. The Soviets were not the type to risk nuke warheads on a test station. I am not saying that such a scenario is impossible, just unlikely.
This thing was so damned big that using F-15 launched ASAT weapons in salvo could have brought the behemoth to an early demise in the event of hostilities.
During this time, we were busy, busy building and testing new MFG processes and tolerance improvements.
But I really don't know to this day if we actually had anything that worked. The plant I worked at built a modular section of something, but I never saw what was fitted into it. I don't even know if we put something up.
What a game that was.