Cosmos 2517

Launch data: Designation  41579 / 16034A Launch date  04 June 2016 - 14:00 UT Launch site  Plesetsk, LC133/3 Launch vehicle  Rokot-KM Mission  Military: Earth Science Satellite type  Geo-IK-2 2 LEO, Sun-Synchronous Earth orbit: Perigee / Apogee  936 x 961 km Eccentricity  1,91E-03 Inclination  99.27° Period  104.03 min

Artist’s concept of a GEO-IK 2 satellite in orbit. Credit: ISS Reshetnev

Spacecraft data:

Description:

• The first launch on board of a Rokot-KM booster took place on 1 February 2011. The launch failed to reach the correct orbit and ground controllers were initially not able to establish contact with the satellite called Kosmos 2470. After evaluations to use the satellite from this orbit, it was finally declared a total loss in June 2011. It reentered on July 15, 2013.
• The second satellite was ordered to be launched in 2014, but the launch has slipped until 2016.
• The payload launched on June 4 is the second spacecraft in Russia´s new generation of GEO-IK 2 measurement stations in orbit to collect geodetic information for a range of military and civilian applications.
• Designed to measure variations in the Earth’s gravitational field, to build a high-precision geodetic network in the geocentric coordinate system, as well as study continental plate motion, tides, the Earth’s rotation and coordinates of poles.

Mission details:

• The satellite took off on a Rockot launcher at 1400 GMT (10 a.m. EDT) on June 4, from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.
• After firing out of an above-ground launch canister, the 95-foot-tall (29-meter) Rockot vehicle flew northwest from Plesetsk, a forested space launch complex north of Moscow, on top of 420,000 pounds [1.9 million N] of thrust. The rocket jettisoned its first and second stages in the first five minutes of the flight, then a Breeze KM upper stage took over for a pair of burns to reach the correct orbit.
  The Rockot´s lower two stages are from a decommissioned SS-19 missile built to lob nuclear warheads around the world. The Breeze KM upper stage, made by Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, is added to the top of the SS-19 missile to make satellite launches possible.
• Saturday´s launch was the 26th liftoff of a Rockot/Breeze KM vehicle since 2000, but the unusual trajectory required to put the satellite into its intended orbit drew the ire of environmentalists because the flight path would drop the Rockot´s second stage over Baffin Bay in the Canadian Arctic.
  The Rockot´s engines consume a toxic mix of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide.
  'The idea of dropping a missile full of toxic chemicals in the Arctic waters off Baffin Island is just as preposterous as drilling for oil there,' Greenpeace Arctic campaigner Alex Speers-Roesch said, according to a CBC news report. Canadian government officials stressed the risk from the re-entry was minimal, adding that most of the hazardous propellants would burn up before debris reaches the ground.
• The Russian military renamed the spacecraft as Kosmos 2517, keeping with Russia´s naming system for defense-related satellites.

External links:

• Satellite tracking: Real time satellite tracking