Russian spying satellite performs strange maneuvers in the orbit of the Earth: what is known (photo)
Subscribe not to miss the latest and most intrusive news from the world of science! The French company Aldoria, which tracks satellites in orbit with the help of a network of terrestrial telescopes, recently warned satellite operators that "Rapan rapprochement of" Russian "Luch-2 was found with another satellite in geostationary orbit. According to the company, this maneuver happened in April this year at an altitude of 35 780 kilometers from the surface of the earth.
Aldoria did not tell you what a satellite could spy "Luch-2". It is known that the minimum distance between the two objects was 10 km, and as of June 3, they are at a distance of 20 to 50 km. We remind that in May, representatives of American intelligence and Pentagon accused Russia of attempting to militarize the cosmos by placing another military satellite in the same orbit as the US government satellite.
The Russian Space Satellite 2576, according to Americans, "is probably an anti -scemic weapon, probably capable of attacking other satellites in low Earth orbit. " Russia has denied such statements. The Russian Luch-2 satellite, also known as Olymp-2, was secretly launched last March and flew 60 km from another satellite in October in October. According to Slingshot Aerospace, specializing in space flight safety, the satellite left this position in early December and moved to another satellite.
In both cases, Slingshot Aerospace did not identify satellites that the Russian Federation approached. Recent maneuvers of the Russian satellite is not an unprecedented event. His predecessor, Luch-1 satellite, has been repeatedly found near the satellites of other countries since 2014. In particular, he maneuvered next to American satellites at a distance of 10 km.
In 2018, France accused Russia of using the Luch-1 satellite to intercept messages from one of the country's satellites used for military purposes. Aldoria stated that Luch-2 satellite, like his predecessor, has the history of unusual maneuvering near other satellites in geostationary orbit, which is suspected of his mission. As focus has already written, NASA prepares an important announcement of the state of Hubble telescope.