Cosmic Penguin
Geek Penguin in GTO
Just 18 days after putting the Soyuz rocket back into service, the soldiers at the northern Russian Plesetsk Cosmodrome went into busy mode by sending up yet another Soyuz rocket from the very same pad!
This one - a 2.1b variant - lifted off from pad 43/4 of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on June 23 at 16:44 UTC, in the last hours of sunshine for the day. Like last time, the payload on top was deployed into the planned polar orbit within 10 minutes.
And also like last time, everyone knows what is flying this time. The last flight carried the representative of Russian optical spysats of the past. This one, on the other hand, flew with the representative of its present state - the 3rd (and probably the last) Persona spysat.
The Persona project was dated way back in the 1980s as a big Soviet telescope aimed at Earth just like the KH-11 series of the US, but like many other projects the fall of the Soviet Union doomed it. However parts for 3 of them were already built and when Russia started to grow back a smaller project was put up and as a result this roughly 7 tonne spysat was born. According to various reports it may have a resolution down to 0.5 meters with an imaging swath reaching 1300 kilometers from its 720 km high polar orbit.
Of course, as with many other Russian spaceflight projects, it has its share of problems. After years of delays the 1st one flew in July 2008 as Kosmos 2441 - and failed before it could enter service when the electronics on board zapped. The problem caused a several year hole in Russia's reconnaissance capability that won't be plugged until the last few years.
Due to insufficient funding and other problems, the 2nd one would not flew until June 2013 as Kosmos 2486. And the problem continues as (according to Russian newspaper reports) several months later half of the satellite's communication system memory processors failed. At least for this one the problem was solved months later with software re-works and it was immediately placed into service during the "Black Sea Affair". In fact several of the satellite photos released by the Russians claiming evidence of Ukrainians shooting down MH17 are probably from Persona #2!
With #3 now in orbit, the re-construction of Russia's spysat network continues to roll with even more new satellite systems coming on line this year. Beware of Big Brother Putin et al. from above! :uhh:
Soyuz 2-1B launches third Persona-1 spy satellite
RussiaSpaceWeb.com: Persona (14F137) spy satellite
This one - a 2.1b variant - lifted off from pad 43/4 of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on June 23 at 16:44 UTC, in the last hours of sunshine for the day. Like last time, the payload on top was deployed into the planned polar orbit within 10 minutes.
And also like last time, everyone knows what is flying this time. The last flight carried the representative of Russian optical spysats of the past. This one, on the other hand, flew with the representative of its present state - the 3rd (and probably the last) Persona spysat.
The Persona project was dated way back in the 1980s as a big Soviet telescope aimed at Earth just like the KH-11 series of the US, but like many other projects the fall of the Soviet Union doomed it. However parts for 3 of them were already built and when Russia started to grow back a smaller project was put up and as a result this roughly 7 tonne spysat was born. According to various reports it may have a resolution down to 0.5 meters with an imaging swath reaching 1300 kilometers from its 720 km high polar orbit.
Of course, as with many other Russian spaceflight projects, it has its share of problems. After years of delays the 1st one flew in July 2008 as Kosmos 2441 - and failed before it could enter service when the electronics on board zapped. The problem caused a several year hole in Russia's reconnaissance capability that won't be plugged until the last few years.
Due to insufficient funding and other problems, the 2nd one would not flew until June 2013 as Kosmos 2486. And the problem continues as (according to Russian newspaper reports) several months later half of the satellite's communication system memory processors failed. At least for this one the problem was solved months later with software re-works and it was immediately placed into service during the "Black Sea Affair". In fact several of the satellite photos released by the Russians claiming evidence of Ukrainians shooting down MH17 are probably from Persona #2!
With #3 now in orbit, the re-construction of Russia's spysat network continues to roll with even more new satellite systems coming on line this year. Beware of Big Brother Putin et al. from above! :uhh:
Soyuz 2-1B launches third Persona-1 spy satellite
RussiaSpaceWeb.com: Persona (14F137) spy satellite
