According to the Department of Information and Mass Communications of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, on October 15, 2022 at 22:55 Moscow time from the State Test Cosmodrome of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (Plesetsk Cosmodrome) in the Arkhangelsk region, the combat crew of the space forces of the Aerospace Forces of Russia successfully launched a light-class carrier rocket "Angara-1.2" with a spacecraft in the interests of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
Launch of the new Russian light launch vehicle "Angara-1.2" (No. 2L) in serial execution from the State Test Cosmodrome of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Arkhangelsk region), 10/15/2022 (c) RoscosmosThe launch of the launch vehicle and the launch of the spacecraft into the calculated orbit were carried out in normal mode.
Two minutes after the launch, the launch vehicle "Angara-1.2" was accepted for support by ground-based controls of the Main Test Space Center named after Herman Titov.
At the estimated time, the spacecraft was launched into the target orbit and taken over by the ground facilities of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The spacecraft was assigned the serial number "Cosmos-2560".
Stable telemetry communication has been established and maintained with the spacecraft, its onboard systems are functioning normally.
After the spacecraft was put into orbit, the officers of the Main Space Situation Intelligence Center of the Space Forces of the Aerospace Forces entered it into the Main Catalog of Space Objects of the Russian Space Control System and began analyzing and processing information about the new space object.
From the bmpd side, we point out that in this way the second launch of the new Russian light carrier rocket Angara-1 took place.2" of the Angara family in serial execution (rocket No. 2L), the main developer of which is JSC "State Space Research and Production Center named after M. V. Khrunichev" (part of the State Corporation "Roscosmos"). The first launch of the Angara-1 launch vehicle.2" of the Angara family in serial execution (No. 1L, No. 71602) was produced on April 29, 2022.
In its current serial appearance, "Angara-1.2" is essentially a three-stage rocket, including the universal missile module UTM-1 of the Angara family as the first stage (with the RD-191 engine), a specially designed second stage with a diameter of 2.9 m (with the RD-0124A engine) and a detachable "aggregate module" AM as the third stage (equipped with four small 11D458 engines with a thrust of 40 kgf and 14 17D58E engines with a thrust of 1.3 kgf). The length of the "Angara-1.2" in the serial version is about 41.5 m, the launch mass is approximately 171 tons, the payload capacity is up to 3800 kg when launched into a low reference orbit with a height of about 200 km.
According to Western and unofficial Russian sources, during the launch on October 15, with the help of the Angara-1.2 launch vehicle, the third small-sized optical reconnaissance satellite of the new generation MKA-R ("Run-up" series) developed by AO "Scientific and Production Corporation "Space Systems" was launched into orbit under the designation "Cosmos-2560". monitoring, information management and electromechanical complexes "named after A.G. Iosifyan" (JSC "Corporation "VNIIEM", formerly the All-Russian Research Institute of Electromechanics - VNIIEM). The reliability of this information and identification is unknown. A number of sources reported that the mass of the withdrawn satellite is 150 kg. According to Western data, the Kosmos-2560 satellite orbits at a height of 335 x 353 km with a period of 91 minutes. According to Western sources, presumably, the satellites of the Run-up series are equipped with a digital camera developed by JSC Peleng (Belarus), which has a maximum resolution of 0.9 meters in panchromatic mode.
If the data on the identification of Kosmos-2560 as MK-R is correct, then this is the third launched satellite of this type after the first two that turned out to be inoperable. Recall that, as it is believed, the launch of the first satellite "Run-up" under the designation "Cosmos-2551" was carried out by the Soyuz-2 carrier rocket.1B" from Plesetsk on September 9, 2021, but it turned out to be unsuccessful, the device did not function from the moment it entered orbit and on October 20, 2021, it burned down in the dense layers of the atmosphere. The launch of the second satellite of the Run-up series, apparently, was carried out under the designation "Cosmos-2555" during the first launch of the Angara-1.2 launch vehicle on April 29, 2022, but the device began to decline from the moment it was put into orbit and also burned down in dense layers of the atmosphere on May 18, 2022.
It is believed that the prototype-demonstrator of the MKA-R series satellites was the experimental military optical reconnaissance satellite EMKA (also known as Zvezda-1) developed by the same JSC Corporation VNIIEM. The launch of the EMKA was carried out under the designation "Cosmos-2525" by the Soyuz-2.1V carrier rocket from Plesetsk on March 29, 2018, after which the satellite operated for three years in an orbit with a height of 270 km to 320 km and entered the dense layers of the atmosphere on April 1, 2021.
New Russian light launch vehicle "Angara-1.2" (No. 2L) in serial execution before launch from the State Test Cosmodrome of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Arkhangelsk region), 10/15/2022 (c) Ministry of Defense of the Russian FederationVideo:
