Launched on June 25, 2021 at 22: 50 Moscow time from Plesetsk in the Arkhangelsk Region with a Soyuz-2.1 b rocket, the Kosmos-2550 spacecraft is the first "active" radar reconnaissance satellite 14F139 "Pion-NKS" of the space complex of marine reconnaissance and target designation 14K159 "Liana", writes the bmpd blog in LiveJournal.
The publication notes that currently the 14K159 "Liana" consists of four "passive" satellites of radio intelligence 14F145 "Lotus-S1". It is expected that later another 6.5-ton 14F139 "Pion-NKS" will be launched, which, like the first spacecraft, will be in an orbit with a height of 500 kilometers.
The bmpd blog reminds that the 14F139 "Pion-NKS" satellites are one of the" long-term projects " of the Russian military space industry, the launch dates of which have been repeatedly postponed.
In May 2019, Izvestia, referring to the Russian Defense Ministry, reported that the formation of the 14K159 "Liana" system, which will cover the entire Earth, will be completed in 2019. At the same time, the newspaper called three American Lacrosse radar satellites a foreign analogue of "Liana".
Ivan Potapov
