The launch of a classified Russian military satellite last week deployed a payload that U.S. government officials say may be a space weapon.
In a series of statements, U.S. officials said the new military satellite, called Cosmos 2576, appears similar to two previous “probe” spacecraft launched by Russia in 2019 and 2022.
U.S. Deputy Director Robert Wood said, “Last week, on May 16, Russia launched a satellite into low-Earth orbit, and the United States believes this satellite is likely to be a counterspace weapon capable of attacking other satellites in low-Earth orbit.” Ambassador to the United Nations. “Russia has placed this new counterspace weapon in the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite.”
Cosmos 2576 is flying in the same orbital plane as the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) reconnaissance satellite. This means regular access to America's top secret reconnaissance platforms. The launch of Cosmos 2576 aboard a Soyuz rocket from Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome was precisely timed as the Earth's rotation moved its launch site into the suborbit of the NRO reconnaissance satellite, officially designated USA 314.
The Soyuz rocket's Fregat upper stage launched Cosmos 2576 into an orbit about 445 kilometers (275 miles) above Earth, tilted 97.25 degrees relative to the equator.
Conventional but concerning
So far, Cosmos 2576 is nowhere near USA 314, a bus-sized spacecraft believed to carry a powerful telescope looking at Earth to capture high-resolution images for use by U.S. intelligence agencies. This type of spacecraft is publicly known as the KH-11, or Keyhole-class satellite, but its design and performance are top secret.
It's no surprise that the Russian military wants a closer look to learn more about the U.S. government's most closely held secrets about what it does in orbit. Russian satellites also flew near Western communications satellites in geostationary orbit, most likely in an attempt to eavesdrop on their radio transmissions.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov dismissed the U.S. government's assessment of Cosmos 2576's purpose as “fake news.” But over the past few years, Russia has shown that it can steer satellites into orbits that intersect the paths of U.S. reconnaissance platforms and use a variety of methods to take out enemy satellites.
Cosmos 2576's current orbit only occasionally brings it within a few hundred kilometers of USA 314, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and spaceflight event tracker. But analysts expect additional maneuvers to increase Kosmos 2576's altitude and position it for a closer passage. This is what happened with a pair of Russian satellites launched in 2019 and 2022.
These two former Russian satellites (Kosmos 2542 and Kosmos 2558) consistently flew within tens of kilometers of two other NRO satellites (USA 245 and USA 326) in low Earth orbit. In a post on the social media platform
Because of this, McDowell wrote that he was “very skeptical” that Cosmos 2576 was an anti-satellite weapon.
However, one of these Russian satellites, Cosmos 2542, launched a smaller subsatellite, designated Cosmos 2543, which itself passed near the USA 245 spacecraft, a KH-11 imaging satellite similar to USA 314. At some point, a satellite tracker discovered it. USA 245 changed its orbit slightly. The Russian tracker later caught up by adjusting a similar trajectory.
In 2020, Cosmos 2543 retired from USA 245. Once far away from the NRO satellite, Cosmos 2543 released a mysterious projectile into space at a speed fast enough to damage any target in sight.
At the time, U.S. Space Command called the event “a non-destructive test of a space-based anti-satellite weapon.” McDowell's analysis of publicly available satellite tracking data shows that the projectile was launched from Cosmos 2543 at a relative velocity of about 700 kilometers per hour.
The U.S. military has identified China as its most important strategic adversary for the coming decades. Although much of Russia's space program is in decline, it still boasts powerful satellite-killing capabilities. Russia deliberately destroyed one of its retired satellites in orbit with a ground-based missile in 2021. The Russians have also deployed several Peresvet laser units that can neutralize satellites in orbit. As the invasion of Ukraine begins in 2022, a Russian cyberattack knocks commercial satellite communications networks offline.
Most recently, U.S. government officials claimed that Russia was developing nuclear anti-satellite weapons. Russian officials also denied this. But Russia last month vetoed a UN Security Council resolution reiterating provisions of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty banning weapons of mass destruction in orbit.
The U.S. military has its own fleet of inspection satellites in orbit to track what other countries are doing in space. The Space Force's development of offensive military capabilities in space is classified.
“The space domain today is much more challenging than it has been in years,” said Air Force Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council on Wednesday. “We used to see space as a very benign environment where we didn't have to worry about collisions. In fact, it was kind of a no-no to label space as a combat domain, but that has changed, and it has changed with what our adversaries are doing in space. “
“We don’t want our satellites to be challenged,” Brown said. “So we want to make sure that we have the ability to defend ourselves regardless of whether we’re in the domain we’re in or in space.” Territory, air, land or sea. “That’s where we’re focused on making sure we’re investing as a force to provide the capabilities and expertise to do this.”