Ministry of Defence has lost satellite, capable of seeing foreign submarine – Proceedings

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Photo: mil.ru

The Russian Space Forces could not cleanly to launch a satellite “Canopus-ST”, complete with equipment to detect submarines submerged . Together with the “Canopus-ST” starts the calibration sphere (layout program for testing new upper stage “Volga”, which together with the new rocket “Soyuz 2.1V” flew for the second time in history.) The scope has been fixed on the side of the adapter, which connected the upper stage and the main satellite. As told “Izvestia” the source in one of the involved in the launch of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Defense, according to preliminary data, the separation of the calibration sphere went normally, but the “Canopus” from the upper stage did not separate and not earned.

Start held at 17.09 Moscow time on December 5, and in 19.13 Online aerospace forces have appeared on the successful start-up, where it was reported that the missile launch and removing the payload passed in a regular mode.

Since then, the Defense Ministry did not publish more information on the results of the launch.

– Project “Canopus” at least 15 years, and all this kind of equipment was developed to the 80s of the last century, not only in USSR and Russia, but also in the United States. – Says the editor of the site russianspaceweb.com Anatoly Zak. – According to open sources, the main tool of this unit is a radiometer, in this case with the radar wavelength, which allows you to see through the water layers. The target device did STC “cosmonium”, which is part of JSC “Russian Space Systems».

Initially, the apparatus for meteorological purposes “Konopus-ST” was named the submarine hunters in 2010: representatives of scientific -technological center “cosmonium” JSC “Russian Space Systems” Vladimir Boldyrev said then that “… in the STC developed the target module” Konopus-ST “, which after elimination in Earth orbit will be able to carry out remote sensing of ocean to cover the surface and underwater conditions and to detect submarines submerged ».

The Russian military is the first bad start this year, two more accidents on account of the Russian Space Agency – in April ended a poor run of the ship” Progress “with a cargo to the ISS, He may unsuccessfully launched “Proton” with Mexican telecommunications apparatus. If you recall, that this year in orbit foreign satellites denied Russian production – EgyptSat 2 in May and AMOS 5 in November – this year it can be safely assumed to be extremely unfortunate for the Russian space exploration in general. According to the frequency of accidents is the repetition of the record of 2011, when Russia also lost “Progress”, the telecommunications unit on “Proton”, two instruments of Defense and scientific interplanetary station “Phobos Grunt».

– real reform at the largest enterprises of the space industry began a year ago, – says Andrew, son of John, a member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics. Tsiolkovsky. – Taking into account the long production cycle of production space, this series of accidents can not be considered as a result of the new command as a result of the reform. The effectiveness of the reform will be judged in the coming years, and now we are reaping the fruits of an extended industry crisis clearly showed five years ago.

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