That's the Soviet Union's official "Dr. Evil" space station, Polyus (or Skif-DM):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft)

It was put together in a crash program to counter Reagan's SDI initiative. It was a scary fucker - giant megawatt CO2 laser, "nuclear space mines", 23mm cannon, all sortsa good shit. The Soviets put it up in May '87 but because things were a little too fancy with the insertion, it had to go through some complicated maneuvers to actually get into orbit - detach from the Energia, rotate 180 degrees and fire boosters.

Depending on who you ask, it either didn't respond to inertial sensors or somebody committed a sign error. Anyway, it detached from Energia, rotated 360 degrees and fired boosters, thereby slowing its velocity and de-orbiting into the Pacific. It wasn't declassified until the 2000s, at which point nobody could make headlines about failed Soviet doomsday satellites.

"I'm not entirely sure the error was accidental, although I've found no discussion on the subject," he said conspiratorially from under his tinfoil hat, "as is often the case with successful interdictions."