Rand Simberg posted this email from Jim Oberg, who notes:

"This was the bird that the Soviet's military built and planned to launch without telling Gorbachev -- he found out, and ordered the rocket test to proceed but the payload to not be activated.
Conveniently -- and I suspect, not accidentally -- the orbit circularization burn at first apogee failed. May 1987, I recall.

Had it gone into orbit, while Reagan was president, it would likely have sparked a major 'Stars Wars' space military race with potentially dreadful consequences."

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Many in the US denigrated the Soviet challenge at the time, including the recently failed presidential candidate who advocated that the US freeze its weapons. This Polyus disclosure contradicts recent attempts to re-write history with the Soviet Union as no threat at the time.