Russian Military Satellites: Development and Launches

The Soyuz-2.1b rocket with military satellites on board launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome

Moscow. May 17. INTERFAX.RU - The Russian Aerospace Forces launched the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle from the Plesetsk cosmodrome, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported on Friday.

“On May 17, 2024, the Soyuz 2.1b launch vehicle with spacecraft on board was launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome (Arkhangelsk region) in the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defense,” the message says.

In April, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited the Plesetsk cosmodrome. He inspected the progress of construction and modernization of the cosmodrome's infrastructure facilities and said that with "the completion of the modernization of the second launch complex of Soyuz launch vehicles, the cosmodrome's capabilities to support spacecraft launches will double."

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Edit: scuttlebutt is that this mission involved launching a trio of Razbeg/14F169 optical recon sats, plus a number of cubesats of unknown config.

Opinions on the nature of this mission is changing. Orbited objects are listed as

GROUP ORBIT (km) INC PERIOD OBJECT(S) possible ID
I 451 x 435 97.25 93.45 A KOSMOS 2576
II 796 x 780 98.59 100.62 G,H,J Rassvet
IIIa 552 x 532 97.59 95.52 D,E,F,K SITRO-AIS
IIIb 548 x 531 97.59 95.45 B,C Zorkiy 2M

So a trio of Rassvet broadband internet sats, while Kosmos 2576 is now though to be an in-orbit inspector of the type Nivelir (14F150) as it shadowing the spysat USA=314 of the Global Sedition forces.

Gazprom has built factories for making satellites for their own use and for other companies to have made.

This video has information about this and other space related stories of interest including North Korea moving from using Chinese satellites to using Russian ones, with the South Koreans complaining that they can't intercept North Korean signals now they are on Russian satellites.

New satellites are intended to improve communication for Russia along its north sea route and also in cars and trucks and trains and ships.

It also mentions satellite signals for controlling drones and other robotic platforms like self driving vehicles etc.

Launch of military cartography satellite Bars-M (14F148) N°6  

Launch is successful and payload has been released into orbit.

https://tehnoomsk.ru/archives/14807

New Russian 4-ton military satellite successfully launched


On October 31, 2024, an unnamed military satellite was successfully launched into orbit by a Soyuz-2.1a rocket from the Plesetsk military cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region in the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Foreign sources have already suggested that this is the Cosmos-2579 or the 6th Bars-M type device, designed for digital mapping and remote sensing of the Earth.

Thus, according to the authors of the American specialized resource RussianSpaceWeb, this 4-ton satellite is equipped with the Karat optical-electronic complex and will operate in low orbits (about 500 km from the Earth's surface) for at least 5 years. No official confirmation of this information has been published.

Alleged image of the Bars-M 14F148 reconnaissance satellite according to foreign sources (2016):

In 2022, a number of open Internet sources published data that the Karat complex is equipped with 2 digital wide-angle cameras with a resolution of about 1 meter, allowing high-resolution shooting with a swath width of 60 kilometers. Karat provides shooting in panchromatic (black and white with high contrast and detail) and multispectral modes (7 spectral channels). This information has also not been officially confirmed.

The previous Bars-M satellite was launched into orbit from Plesetsk in December 2023.

Let us add that the Russian military satellite launched on October 31, 2024 from Plesetsk, according to information from Western resources, was launched into a sun-synchronous orbit of 338 by 498 kilometers with an inclination of 97.6 degrees to the equator and began its work.
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