A low power laser could also blind optics persistently if the attack satellite were to be able to get in a good position. Riding atop a Soyuz rocket, Cosmos 2542 settled into orbit between 250 miles and 550 miles over Earth’s surface.

To offer you the best possible functionality of our website, we also use a few cookies. On 6 December 2019 Cosmos-2542 released a smaller satellite called Cosmos-2543, and on 21 January 2020 the two Russian satellites altered their orbits in order to match the orbit of the U.S. NRO satellite, believed to be one of its KH-11 extremely high resolution reconnaissance satellite, called USA-245.

"There may come a point where we demonstrate some of our capabilities so that our adversaries understand they cannot deny us the use of space without consequence," then-Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson had said at the Space Foundation’s 35th annual Space Symposium in 2019. Your email address will not be published. A killer satellite could also just simply smash into its intended target to try to damage or destroy it.

It remains unclear exactly what she meant, but her comments certainly indicated an increasingly tense environment for the U.S. military in space. Beyond that, the ability of Cosmos 2542 to get into this position at all is notable and is exactly the kind of orbital maneuvering that the U.S. government had pointed to in the past evidence of potential "killer satellites." Later in May 2020, Kosmos 2543 adjusted its orbit to fly in formation with Kosmos 2535. General John ‘Jay’ Raymond, the Commander of the U.S. Space Force, has told reporters that, “We view this behaviour as unusual and disturbing…It has the potential to create a dangerous situation in space.”, Additionally, General Raymond has stated that this incident involving the Cosmos-2542 and -2543 satellites are “behaving similar to another set of satellites that Russia deployed in 2017, and which the Russian government characterised as ‘inspector satellites’.”. One of Space Force's immediate tasks will be to simply craft an understanding of what a future war in space might actually look like, which is an ever-increasingly realistic prospect, as The War Zone The inspection-sat launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome north of Moscow back in November. Not that they would be useful during peacetime. Cosmos 2523 is another inspector satellite. According to amateur satellite trackers, the Russian probe known as Kosmos 2542, which was launched in November last year, has been orbiting in the same plane as a satellite operated by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) called USA 245, which has been in space since 2013. They traditionally maintain orbits that dip as low as 160 miles and climb as high as 620 miles, allowing the satellites to modulate between viewing huge swaths of Earth at low resolution and much smaller sections of the planet at high resolution. The Russian spacecraft is meant to inspect other satellites, and experts in the space community believe it may now be keeping a watchful eye on the secretive US vehicle in a high-altitude spy game, The Verge reported. The Soyuz-2-1v/Volga space launch vehicle carrying Cosmos 2542 blasts off from Plesetsk Cosmodrome on Nov. 25, 2019. “You can probably equip them with lasers, maybe put some explosives on them,” Anatoly Zak, an independent expert on Russian spacecraft, told The Daily Beast in 2015. SJ-17 reportedly rendezvoused with three Chinese communications satellites – ChinaSAT-5A, -6A, and -20 – and carried out various proximity operations with these systems. “Cosmos 2542 is loitering around USA 245 in consistent view,” Thompson tweeted Thursday. Please contact the developer of this form processor to improve this message.

Cosmos 2542 had already been involved in other curious activities since its launch in November 2019.

This might be similar to Kosmos 2521. All of these craft have had potential as weapons. Learn more about how we use cookies in our cookie policy.

Kosmos 2542 attracted particular attention last week when it performed a series of maneuvers, using its onboard thrusters to get closer to USA 245. Asia Times Financial is now live. A US Defense Intelligence Agency disagram showing the various means by which one satellite might attack another. The NRO reportedly operates four KH-11s. However, this may result in some functions no longer being available. Sat-tracker Nico Janssen noticed the maneuver and fed data to Thompson, who performed his own analysis, then started tweeting. However, the satellites, identified as Cosmos 2542 and Cosmos 2543, appeared to be carrying out another mission. After some time in orbit, a smaller subsatellite, Kosmos 2543, was deployed. Thompson questioned the intelligence value of visually observing the exterior of the American satellite, pointing out that publicly available information has already allowed for good estimates as to the basic imaging capabilities of these spy satellites, the first variations of which entered service in the 1970s. Please make a donation to support Gunter's Space Page. In July 2020, an object seperated from Kosmos 2543. U.S. Alleges Two Russian Satellites Are Stalking One Of Its Satellites, Microsoft partners with Starlink for its Azure Space cloud, EOS Data Analytics to provide precision farming tool on Dragonfly, TriSept to launch cubesat demo for U.S. Army on Rocket Lab’s Electron. “If [one] comes very close to some military satellite, it probably can do some harm.”. The unusual move by Russian Cosmos 2542 on Jan. 20 allows it to closely watch the American KH-11, a $4 billion orbital telescope staring down at Earth. Be a Star in ESA’s Universe 2020: Launch your career in Space!



How to react to the activities of foreign satellites, such as Cosmos 2542, where it may not be clear what the threat is, or if there even is one, is exactly the kind of issue that the U.S. military, and the new Space Force, in particular, will only increasingly be faced with as time goes on. Yet despite this defensive maneuver, and due to orbital mechanics, the Russian satellites are still close enough to potentially gather valuable intelligence on the capabilities of USA-245 using optical and electronic measurement sensors, and, according to some observers, the Russian and U.S. satellites will likely make at least one close pass (less that 100km distance) of each other by late February 2020. These satellites were launched on 25 November 2019 on a Soyuz-2-1v Volga rocket from Plesetsk. Space Force Looks Go For Launch But Questions Remain About How It Will 'Dogfight In Space'. Thompson writes that the Russian satellite has been in constant view of its US target for nearly two weeks now. Cosmos 2542’s original orbit allowed it to pass within a few hundred miles of the KH-11 every 11 or 12 days, noted Michael Thompson, an American graduate student who moonlights with a …

The French Have Plans For A Constellation Of Laser-Armed Miniature Satellites. It’s not clear what happens next. The Russian Ministry of Defense has said that the satellites exact capabilities are classified, but Interfax reported that its cameras are also capable of Earth imaging, in addition to monitoring other satellites in the inspector role, according to RussianSpaceWeb.com. Learn More{{/message}}, {{#message}}{{{message}}}{{/message}}{{^message}}It appears your submission was successful. China is pursuing similar developments, as well.

USAF Secretary Gives Ominous Warning That Show Of Force Needed To Deter Space Attacks. Amateur sat-trackers all over the world use telescopes and government data to keep track of many of the world’s roughly 2,200 active satellites, more than half of which are in low orbit between 100 and 1,200 miles above Earth.

However, Thompson notes that the only other satellites in this particular plane are Cosmos 2523, Cosmos 2543, and the Russian commercial remote sensing satellite Resurs-P1. © document.write(new Date().getFullYear()) Acton Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Covering geo-political news and current affairs across Asia.

"As I'm typing this, that offset distance shifts between 150 and 300km depending on the location in the orbit," according to Thompson. Will Secret Service ‘forcibly remove’ Trump? By coordinating the orbits of the KH-11s, the NRO can maintain simultaneous wide and narrow surveillance. Likely it is of the 14F150 type like Kosmos 2519.

Russia is known to be interested in anti-satellite capacities and has developed or is developing a number of terrestrial anti-satellite weapons, including ground-based and air-launched interceptors, too.

Russia has a number of what it calls "space apparatus inspectors" in orbit, which the U.S. government and others warn the Kremlin could use to gather intelligence on other satellites or function as "killer satellites," using various means to damage, disable, or destroy those targets. Explore more about the cookies we use. For the Americans, getting tailed by the Russians in peacetime is annoying.

This one is suspected to be a satellite inspector payload, as it synchronized its orbit with that of the US reconnaisance satellite KH-11 16 (Crystal 16, USA 245) and is following maneuveres of the US satellite.

But serious questions remain about what an all-out war in space would even look like and what hostile actions would automatically demand a response. The purpose of the satellites is kept classified.

Cosmos 2542 has had the potential to watch USA 245 constantly for the previous week and is ‘loitering’ round US 245 in constant view, he stated. Two weeks ago, Cosmos 2542 started tailing a secret Pentagon space reconnaissance telescope. “Moscow will respond after studying it. The available information suggests that the Russians may have put yet another secretive "killer satellite" into orbit. Within two days of the Russian satellites’ orbital alterations, the NRO moved USA-245 so that there was a minimum distance of 500 kilometres between it and Cosmos-2542 and Cosmos-2543. Nico Janssen, another satellite observer, noted that USA 245 had shifted its own orbit between Dec. 9 and Dec. 10, possibly to prevent a collision with Cosmos 2543, according to RussianSpaceWeb.com. Publicly available data suggests that a Russian inspector satellite has shifted its position in orbit to bring it relatively close to a U.S. KH-11 spy satellite. Then in mid-January, Cosmos 2542 passed close to the spy satellite—and made its move. Kosmos 2542 attracted particular attention last week when it performed a series of maneuvers, using its onboard thrusters to get uncomfortably close to USA 245, the report said. In 2016 it is alleged that China launched an experimental RPO ‘satellite inspector’ dubbed Shijian-17 (SJ-17) that carried out a series of manoeuvers over an 18 month period that caught the attention of foreign analysts.

In this week’s Space Cafè WebTalk, Prof. Dr. Ram S. Jakhu, Acting Director of the Institute of …, © Copyright ThorGroup GmbH 2020, All Rights Reserved. It’s surprisingly easy to do. Some inspection-sats could double as weapons, tampering with or even destroying enemy spacecraft. Regarding the manoeuvres of these objects in space, these are practices carried out by many countries,” said Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister in a statement to the Russian news media. "In many cases in the Department [of Defense], we’re just so overclassified it’s ridiculous, just unbelievably ridiculous," U.S. Air Force General John Hyten, the present Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a recent Air Force Association gathering, speaking broadly about classification issues, according to Defense News. But it was apparent early on that an American satellite that trackers call USA 245 was the real target.

Whatever Cosmos 2542 is or isn't doing, its present position is clearly deliberate and it is hard to see how it would not be related in some way to the position of USA 245. It is worth noting that this is hardly the first time similar confluences in orbit have occurred and that observers have spotted U.S. satellites possibly examining foreign satellites in the past, as well.