ИСТИНА

The space photometric project ``Lyra" is being developed now in Russia. The project purpose is determination of photometric information and coordinates of natural and artificial space objects, from the brightest ones to 16^{m} in visual light. It is supposed to obtain data for about 40-400 million objects from board of the International Space Station, using an astronomical telescope with a diameter of the main mirror of 0.5 m. The observations will be carried out in a scanning mode. Photometry will be obtained in 10 spectral bands. The expected uncertainty for objects of 16^{m} in the V band is 0.01m. The scanning law is that each object will be observed, on average, one hundred times. The Sternberg Astronomical Institute of the Moscow University is the director of experiment and the head scientific organization. The launch of the apparatus into the orbit is planned for 2013. The central wavelengths of the 10 bands of the Lyra photometric system will be at 195, 218, 270, 350, 440, 550, 700, 825, 930 and 1000 nm. It is shown that combinations of various color indices will allow us to determine confidently both effective temperature and metallicity of stars. The presence of a 218-nm band allows to determine confidently interstellar extinction for stars of O-F spectral types. The photometric system will make it possible to separate halo stars from disk stars and to derive physical parameters of their atmospheres. The main results of the experiment should be: i) a spatial model of the Galaxy at distances to 3 kpc from the Sun; ii) specification of physical parameters of stars and models of stellar evolution; iii) discovering a huge number (millions) of variable stars and determining their variability parameters.