{"id":15635,"date":"2016-03-24T23:40:19","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T15:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/soyuz-launcher-puts-russian-military-spy-satellite-in-orbit\/"},"modified":"2016-03-24T23:40:19","modified_gmt":"2016-03-24T15:40:19","slug":"soyuz-launcher-puts-russian-military-spy-satellite-in-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/soyuz-launcher-puts-russian-military-spy-satellite-in-orbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Soyuz launcher puts Russian military spy satellite in orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_13799\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13799\" style=\"width: 675px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13799\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/soyuz_barsm2.jpg\" alt=\"The Soyuz rocket carrying Russia's second Bars-M military spy satellite lifted off at 0942 GMT (5:42 a.m. EDT; 12:42 p.m. local time) Thursday. Credit: Russian Ministry of Defense\" width=\"675\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/soyuz_barsm2.jpg 675w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/soyuz_barsm2-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13799\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Soyuz rocket carrying Russia\u2019s second Bars-M military spy satellite lifted off at 0942 GMT (5:42 a.m. EDT; 12:42 p.m. local time) Thursday. Credit: Russian Ministry of Defense<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A Russian military spacecraft with a high-resolution digital mapping camera is in orbit Thursday after a successful ascent aboard a Soyuz rocket.<\/p>\n<p>The Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off at 0942 GMT (5:42 a.m. EDT; 12:42 p.m. local time) from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, a military spaceport about 500 miles (800 kilometers) north of Moscow, according to a statement released by the Russian Ministry of Defense.<\/p>\n<p>The launch went normally, Russian defense officials said, and the rocket deployed its secretive payload in orbit less than 10 minutes after liftoff.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. tracking data show two objects attributed to Thursday\u2019s flight \u2014 the Soyuz rocket\u2019s third stage and the Russian military satellite \u2014 in an orbit with a low point of around 201 miles (324 kilometers) and a high point of around 333 miles (536 kilometers) with an inclination of 97.6 degrees to Earth\u2019s equator.<\/p>\n<p>The satellite lofted Thursday is believed to be Russia\u2019s second spacecraft in the Bars-M series of sharp-eyed optical reconnaissance platforms.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gGXy1S2bECw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The first member of the Bars-M series launched in February 2015 from the same launch pad at Plesetsk, and aboard the same type of Soyuz booster, which features a modernized digital flight control system to replace analog guidance employed aboard earlier versions of Russia\u2019s workhorse rocket.<\/p>\n<p>Made by TsSKB Progress in Samara, Russia, the Bars-M satellite\u2019s capabilities are classified, but analysts believe it hosts a digital imager, replacing older satellites that carried film cameras that returned to Earth via parachute to be recovered and developed.<\/p>\n<p>The Bars-M satellite\u2019s Karat electro-optical camera was developed by the Leningrad Optical Mechanical Association, and the satellite is expected to operate at least five years, according to documents posted on a Russian government procurement website.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_13802\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13802\" style=\"width: 675px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13802\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/soyuz_barsm2_2.jpg\" alt=\"The Soyuz rocket carrying Russia's second Bars-M military spy satellite lifted off at 0942 GMT (5:42 a.m. EDT; 12:42 p.m. local time) Thursday. Credit: Russian Ministry of Defense\" width=\"675\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/soyuz_barsm2_2.jpg 675w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/soyuz_barsm2_2-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13802\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Soyuz rocket carrying Russia\u2019s second Bars-M military spy satellite lifted off at 0942 GMT (5:42 a.m. EDT; 12:42 p.m. local time) Thursday. Credit: Russian Ministry of Defense<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The upgrade allows the Bars-M satellites to remain in orbit longer and send imagery to analysts via radio links.<\/p>\n<p>The last of the old-generation satellites launched in 2005, leaving Russia with a gap in the imaging capability to be filled by Bars-M, which specializes in collecting stereo images to help create maps for use by the Russian military.<\/p>\n<p>The Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday that the new satellite received the designation Kosmos 2515, keeping with the military\u2019s naming scheme for defense-related spacecraft.<\/p>\n<p>The Kosmos 2515 satellite is functioning normally after Thursday\u2019s launch, and ground controllers are in contact with the spacecraft, the defense ministry reported on its website.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Soyuz rocket carrying Russia\u2019s second Bars-M military spy satellite lifted off at 0942 GMT (5:42 a.m. EDT; 12:42 p.m. local time) Thursday. Credit: Russian Ministry of Defense A Russian military spacecraft with a high-resolution digital mapping camera is in orbit Thursday after a successful ascent aboard a Soyuz rocket. The Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3772,3773,1893,352,2153,1302,514],"class_list":["post-15635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bars-m","tag-kosmos-2515","tag-plesetsk-cosmodrome","tag-russia","tag-russian-ministry-of-defense","tag-soyuz","tag-soyuz-2-1a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15635"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}