Cosmic Penguin
Geek Penguin in GTO
Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, one of Russia's largest spaceflight enterprises, seems to be continuing on its downward spiral with problems hitting their rockets and spacecraft one after another, with their latest troubles barely 10 days old. Well luckily, this doesn't mean that successes don't happen with them.
This is exactly what their latest launch ended up. Khrunichev's Rockot launch vehicle (which uses converted UR-100N / SS-19 "Stiletto" ICBMs topped by the Breeze-KM upper stage, similar to the notorious Breeze-M but without the outer drop tank) lifted off pad 133/3 of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 05:27 UTC (09:27 Moscow / 01:27 EDT) yesterday, placing 3 military payloads into a 1500 km circular, 82.5 degree inclination orbit 1.5 hours after launch. These 3 satellites were given numbers in the Kosmos series - this time #2496-98.
The identities of these 3 satellites were not in question - they are the latest batches of Rodnik/Strela-3M satellites, the latest in a long-running series of low orbit military communication satellites. These "store-and-dump" (i.e. non-real-time messaging) satellites have been transmitting e-mails, secret documents and messages for the likes of the KGB, army intelligence department and Soviet/Russian embassies overseas for almost 50 years. This latest series of satellites has been deployed since 2005 - the latest launches being on January 15 and December 25 of last year. A civilian version is also available (known as Gonets) for telecommunication uses - with the latest trio launched similarly on September 11 of last year.
See the threads about similar previous launches for information about the rocket and the satellites. :tiphat:
Spaceflight 101: Rockot successfully launches three Russian Military Communication Satellites
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqg-RHZlGfU"]Ракета-носитель «Рокот» с тремя спутниками запущена с космодрома Плесецк[/ame]
This is exactly what their latest launch ended up. Khrunichev's Rockot launch vehicle (which uses converted UR-100N / SS-19 "Stiletto" ICBMs topped by the Breeze-KM upper stage, similar to the notorious Breeze-M but without the outer drop tank) lifted off pad 133/3 of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 05:27 UTC (09:27 Moscow / 01:27 EDT) yesterday, placing 3 military payloads into a 1500 km circular, 82.5 degree inclination orbit 1.5 hours after launch. These 3 satellites were given numbers in the Kosmos series - this time #2496-98.
The identities of these 3 satellites were not in question - they are the latest batches of Rodnik/Strela-3M satellites, the latest in a long-running series of low orbit military communication satellites. These "store-and-dump" (i.e. non-real-time messaging) satellites have been transmitting e-mails, secret documents and messages for the likes of the KGB, army intelligence department and Soviet/Russian embassies overseas for almost 50 years. This latest series of satellites has been deployed since 2005 - the latest launches being on January 15 and December 25 of last year. A civilian version is also available (known as Gonets) for telecommunication uses - with the latest trio launched similarly on September 11 of last year.
See the threads about similar previous launches for information about the rocket and the satellites. :tiphat:
Spaceflight 101: Rockot successfully launches three Russian Military Communication Satellites
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqg-RHZlGfU"]Ракета-носитель «Рокот» с тремя спутниками запущена с космодрома Плесецк[/ame]
