Cosmic Penguin
Geek Penguin in GTO
(Editor's note: The Easter holidays have been playing havoc with my schedule so the reports for this one and another launch has been delayed by 10 days.) :tiphat:
The extremely busy week in spaceflight in the last days of March ends with an 8th launch from the Russians! The 26th Rockot launch vehicle was launched into a late afternoon sky from pad 133/3 of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 13:47 UTC on March 31. The launch slipped 4 weeks from March 3 due to unspecified rocket problems.
Like its last flight in July last year, the rocket carried 3 new satellites of "Russia's Iridium" - the Gonets (Russian for messenger) LEO communication network. Using spacecraft derived from a long running military communication satellite network, each of the Gonets-M satellite provides low-bitrate communication services such as text messaging and transmission from object-tracking sensors (logistics tracking etc.) and automatic weather stations. This launch boosted the constellation to 13 satellites, enough to finally start full service after years of delays.
But the interesting point of this launch is with.....a fourth satellite! I didn't report here back last year, but some people here may have heard of 2 mysterious Russian satellites launched in December 2013 and May 2014 on board the Rockot along with several militarized versions of the Gonets-M satellites. The 2 were never acknowledged by the Russians (except that they ended up with the numbers Kosmos 2491/2499), yet they were observed by the Americans to be flying along side several of the satellites launched at the same time for long periods - in fact the orbital parameters shows that they must be doing inspections of other satellites. It looks like the Russians are re-starting their own "satellite inspector" programs in secret.
And guess what? A 3rd one has been launched along this time as Kosmos 2504! (unlike the last two this one was publicly announced) It is being tracked close to the Briz-KM upper stage, and no-one knows what it is going to do next. So if you are controlling satellites in Earth orbit, be sure to expect a Russian satellite to visit yours with love! :rofl:
NASASpaceflight.com: Russian Rokot lofts another Gonets-M trio
The extremely busy week in spaceflight in the last days of March ends with an 8th launch from the Russians! The 26th Rockot launch vehicle was launched into a late afternoon sky from pad 133/3 of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 13:47 UTC on March 31. The launch slipped 4 weeks from March 3 due to unspecified rocket problems.
Like its last flight in July last year, the rocket carried 3 new satellites of "Russia's Iridium" - the Gonets (Russian for messenger) LEO communication network. Using spacecraft derived from a long running military communication satellite network, each of the Gonets-M satellite provides low-bitrate communication services such as text messaging and transmission from object-tracking sensors (logistics tracking etc.) and automatic weather stations. This launch boosted the constellation to 13 satellites, enough to finally start full service after years of delays.
But the interesting point of this launch is with.....a fourth satellite! I didn't report here back last year, but some people here may have heard of 2 mysterious Russian satellites launched in December 2013 and May 2014 on board the Rockot along with several militarized versions of the Gonets-M satellites. The 2 were never acknowledged by the Russians (except that they ended up with the numbers Kosmos 2491/2499), yet they were observed by the Americans to be flying along side several of the satellites launched at the same time for long periods - in fact the orbital parameters shows that they must be doing inspections of other satellites. It looks like the Russians are re-starting their own "satellite inspector" programs in secret.
And guess what? A 3rd one has been launched along this time as Kosmos 2504! (unlike the last two this one was publicly announced) It is being tracked close to the Briz-KM upper stage, and no-one knows what it is going to do next. So if you are controlling satellites in Earth orbit, be sure to expect a Russian satellite to visit yours with love! :rofl:
NASASpaceflight.com: Russian Rokot lofts another Gonets-M trio
