Based on the experience of writing the history of the global satellite-navigation system GLONASS, this paper offers a number of recommendations for selecting the authors and consultants for writing monographs on the history of complex R&D systems. Combining the efforts of historians of technology and technology experts allows to carry out the comprehensive and in-depth studies of various problems of the history of technology and to put these problems in the relevant R&D and sociopolitical contexts. On the one hand, the selection of the group of authors must take into account the system’s structure, its component subsystems, the main scientific and technical problems that had to be tackled, and the composition of implementing organizations so as to ensure that the thematic area is fully covered. On the other hand, taking into account the organization of works for implementing such projects in the USSR / Russia and the hierarchy of tasks tackled at different levels enables identifying the level of organizations at which the R&D and organizational issues were handled in parallel. Therefore we believe that it is most sensible to involve the members of such organizations in writing monographs on the history of modern technology as experts in various aspects of the development and creation of the R&D system in question.