Russia launched a small navy satellite on Saturday (Oct. 15), pulling off its third orbital mission in lower than per week.
An Angara rocket lifted off from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwestern Russia Saturday at 3:55 p.m. EDT (1955 GMT;10:55 p.m. Moscow time), carrying a small satellite known as EMKA-3 skyward, in response to an replace on Telegram by Russia’s space company Roscosmos, which referred to the satellite as Kosmos 2560.
“On the estimated time, the spacecraft was launched into the goal orbit and accepted for management of floor services of the Russian Ministry of Protection. The spacecraft was assigned the serial quantity Kosmos-2560,” Roscosmos wrote in the telegram update (opens in new tab), accordng to a Google translation. “A secure telemetry connection has been established and maintained with the spacecraft, its onboard programs are working within the regular mode.”
The roughly 330-pound (150 kilograms) EMKA-3 is headed for a sun-synchronous orbit about 190 miles (300 kilometers) above Earth, in response to EverydayAstronaut.com. It is unclear what the spacecraft shall be doing up there.
“Not a lot is understood about this payload, attributable to its navy and secret function,” EverydayAstronaut.com wrote in a mission description (opens in new tab). “The EMKA sequence of satellites are regarded as optical reconnaissance spacecraft.”
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Three EMKA satellites had reached orbit earlier than Saturday’s liftoff, the primary of them in April 2018. That one obtained the designation Kosmos 2525 and spent about three years in orbit, apparently falling again to Earth in spring 2021.
The subsequent two launched in September 2021 and April 2022. However these two — named Kosmos 2551 and Kosmos 2555, respectively — did not keep up lengthy. Every one is assumed to have fallen again to Earth after only a month or so, in response to EverydayAstronaut.com.
“It’s unclear whether or not this satellite, EMKA-3, is a substitute for the failed Kosmos 2555 satellite, or whether or not Kosmos 2555 was merely a dummy mass payload,” the outlet wrote.
Saturday’s launch was simply the second for Russia’s light-weight Angara 1.2, which debuted this past April on one other navy mission. The EMKA-3 liftoff was the sixth general for the Angara rocket household, which Russia developed to switch its previous however still-active Proton launcher.
The EMKA-3 mission was the third for Russia in lower than per week. On Sunday (Oct. 9), a Soyuz rocket launched a GLONASS navigation satellite from Plesetsk, and a Proton lofted a communications satellite for the Angolan authorities on Wednesday (Oct. 12) from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Friday has been a busy day for space followers. It additionally featured the launch of three Chinese language Yaogan reconnaissance satellites and the return to Earth of SpaceX’s Crew-4 astronaut mission.
Crew-4 undocked from the Worldwide Area Station at 12:05 p.m. EDT (1605 GMT) on Friday and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida round 4:55 p.m. EDT (2055 GMT).
Mike Wall is the creator of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a e-book concerning the seek for alien life. Observe him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
