News: Russian Spies Back into Orbit

Russian Spies Back into Orbit

http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?idr=1&id=671333

May 05, 2006 - Kommersant

A new Russian spy satellite has been launched

National Security
The Soyuz-U rocket booster with a spy satellite onboard blasted off
Wednesday night from the launching pad in Plesetsk. It reportedly
carries a Kobalt-M satellite. The start, originally scheduled for
mid-May, happened earlier as Russia's last spy satellite in
operation, US-PU, completed its work in orbit late last week. Two more
reconnaissance satellites are to be sent up within the next two months,
Kommersant learnt.
The satellite which was reported to take off at 9.38 p.m. on Wednesday
is actually Kobalt-M, an optical reconnaissance satellite, according to
the information Kommersant obtained. The Russian Defense Ministry
initially planned to orbit the satellite in mid-May. However, the
schedule for Kobalt-M was amended, and space forces has to speed up the
launch
preparation of the booster and the satellite since US-PU, the last
Russian spy satellite, finished work in orbit after its service life
had ended, a source of Kommersant in the ministry confirmed. The
Defense Ministry managed to resume gathering intelligence data quite
soon after US-PU's breakdown disrupted the process.

Gear tests were held at Kobalt-M yesterday so that the satellite start
photographing objects on the earth's surface under the program of the
Chief Intelligence Department of the Russian General Staff. The
military will be unable to obtain the data soon, though. The film
footage in a special capsule is first to get detached from Kobalt-M and
to land in steppes outside Orenburg. The film is to be taken to the
Space Reconnaissance Center where specialists will develop it to define
what the pictures show.

The modernized Kobalt-M satellite was designed at CSKB-Progress in
Samara on the basis of Yantar-4K2 (11F695), which has been output since
late 1970s, and produced at Arsenal in St. Petersburg. The aircraft
weights 6.6 metric tons and has 120 days of service life in orbit.

The Defense Ministry is set to enlarge a group of reconnaissance
satellites soon, Kommersant learnt. Resurs-DK, an optical and
electronic reconnaissance satellite, and US-PU, a naval radiotechnical
reconnaissance aircraft, are to be put into orbit from the Baikonur
space center on June 15 and June 22, respectively. Once Kobalt-M
finishes its mission, it will be replaced by Don, the latest optical
reconnaissance satellite by produced CSKB-Progress.

The exact date for Don's launch has not been set yet. It will depend
on whether Kobalt will work its 4-month service life through. The
previous flight of a Kobalt-M, which was widely advertised, ended up
with a breakdown. The satellite took off on September 24, 2004 but was
eventually de-orbited on January 10, 2005, two weeks before the
scheduled time. Besides that, Kobal-M's lander with the film footage
was lost in the steppe outside Orenburg. A month-long search was
fruitless. The Russian Defense Minster considered the lander to have
been burnt in the landing module following the off-nominal return from
the orbit.

by Ivan Safronov