 The telescope was conceived in 1965, as part of the Soviet Cloud Space Station, which evolved into the Multi-module Orbital Complex (MOK).When work on Gamma finally began in 1972, it was intended to create a "Gamma observatory", the first space station module for MOK, the first modular space station in the Salyut programme.For this, it was designed to add the scientific instruments of the observatory to a spacecraft derived from the Progress spacecraft – with the Progress in turn being a Soyuz spacecraft derivate – and that this spacecraft would dock to a MOK space station.