Proton-M/Briz-M - Olimp-K #2 - Baikonur - 12 March 2023 - 23:12:59.981UTC

[russianhalo117]

Will it be launched from 81/23 ("left")?

81/24 is the only Proton-M pad at Site 81. 81/23 is flooded and mothballed for many decades since its last launch.

Flooded?? Underwater?

I don't think the now-defunct Site 81/23 became underwater, even though it was reportedly flooded (Pad 81/23 had been slowly stripped of equipment to provide spare parts for renovations of Pad 81/24).

I've noticed translations from Russian sometimes say 'flooded' when they mean something else, so perhaps this is a translation issue.

It could be possible however the dewatering sump system has long been abandoned and was listed as a reason to retain 200/39 rather than restoring 81/23 and deactivating 200/39 which was upgraded without a mothball period after its last Proton-K launch. Note that the water table and groundwater level below ground is close to the surface at certain sites. This became a problem during the deep level tunnel construction and the flame trench during construction of the 1/5 complex and Pad. This is why the trench was backfilled with waterproofing and concrete, the emergency patch can be seen today. This also why several deep level tunnels were moved above ground with armour plating and berms installed thanks to change orders. 31/6's flame trench was shrunk further during its construction to avoid water infiltration. Luckily though the N-1 and Energia pads had a lower local area water table and groundwater infiltration naturally flowing away from the sites.

[B. Hendrickx]

Note that the Roscosmos announcement doesn't mention the data relay role. That was added only by TASS. Either ignorance or deliberate disinformation.

[Vahe231991]

According to RussianSpaceWeb, the Olimp-K #2 launch was conducted from Site 200/39 in the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Since that launch did not take place at Site 81/24, it is unclear whether Site 81/24 is in the final stages of deactivation given that Roscosmos in early 2020 said that Site 81/24 will become inactive beginning in early 2023.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Roscosmos has confirmed payload separated in planned orbit.

https://t.me/roscosmos_gk/8749

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/tskelso/status/1635349786294648833

CelesTrak has GP data for 1 object from the launch (2023-031) of LUCH-5X atop a Proton-M rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome on Mar 12 at 2313 UTC: tass.com/science/1587687. Data for the launch can be found at: https://celestrak.org/NORAD/elements/table.php?INTDES=2023-031

[edkyle99]

Space Track currently shows two objects in orbit from this launch, and has a missing designation for another. 

55841    LUCH (OLYMP) 2   2023-031A   35766 x 35351 km x 0.25 deg

55843    BREEZE-M DEB (TANK)   2023-031C   381 x 35715 km x 48.73 deg

 - Ed Kyle

[Vahe231991]

Space Track currently shows two objects in orbit from this launch, and has a missing designation for another. 

55841    LUCH (OLYMP) 2   2023-031A   35766 x 35351 km x 0.25 deg

55843    BREEZE-M DEB (TANK)   2023-031C   381 x 35715 km x 48.73 deg

 - Ed Kyle

NORAD 55842 almost certainly could be the Proton upper stage that lofted the Olimp-K #2.

[edkyle99]

Briz-M itself now cataloged as object 55842 (2023-031B) in a 35871 x 36445 km x 0.28 deg orbit. 

No images of this launch, I take it?

 - Ed Kyle

[B. Hendrickx]

It is possible that Luch-5X (the official name given to the satellite launched on 12 March) is an improved version of Olimp that is referred to in documentation as Yenisei-2 and is part of a project known internally at ISS Reshetnev as “Project 763”.

I wrote about Yenisei-2 in some detail in the thread on ISS Reshetnev satellites two years ago :
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32423.60
(Reply 78)
I’ll reproduce part of that post here:

ISS Reshetnev is working on a satellite called Yenisei-2 that was likely ordered by the Ministry of Defense. The name of this satellite appears in a brief biography of an ISS Reshetnev specialist along with a number of other military satellites (Sfera, Repei, Gerakl, Ispolin):

http://www.rusea.info/eoaywinners/11992

To the best of my knowledge, the only other information on this satellite can be found on Russia’s government procurement website, where it is the subject of some thirty contracts signed by the Radio Scientific Research Institute (NII Radio or NIIR), which is responsible for developing the satellite’s payload (or at least part of it). NIIR was awarded two separate contracts for the project by ISS Reshetnev on February 1, 2014 (nr. 018/14-026 and 019/14-026), as is apparent from documentation published here:

https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31401813297
https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=32110102781

None of the documents reveal when ISS Reshetnev itself was assigned to the project and who the customer is (Roskosmos or the Ministry of Defense). However, the dearth of information on the project as well as some of the wording used in the contracts strongly point to a military role for Yenisei-2. The name Yenisei-2 itself appears in only a handful of the contracts (only draft versions of which are available on the website). Most of them can be linked to Yenisei-2 only through the two contract numbers. Also seen in some of the contracts is ISS Reshetnev’s internal code name for Yenisei-2, namely “Project 763”. This also appears in an ISS Reshetnev contract for the delivery of nickel-iron alloys needed for the project:

https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31705326139

Most of the work subcontracted by NIIR goes back to 2014-2015, but several new contracts showed up in recent months (the most recent one last March), showing this is still an active project. Many of the older contracts were signed between NIIR and the Izhevsk Radio Factory (IRZ) and contain this line: “For the manufacturing and mechanical tests [of the component], use is to be made of stocks, technical documentation and equipment produced in the framework of the Olimp project”.  The least this indicates is that the payloads of Yenisei-2 and Olimp share common elements, but this does not necessarily mean that the satellites are used for the same purpose. One of the contracts mentioning the connection with Olimp is here:

https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31401640852

NIIR also has a role in Olimp itself, as is clear from documentation published here:

https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31200048159
https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31401189460


It can be determined from the documentation that Yenisei-2 is a geostationary satellite with a 15-year design lifetime which will carry one or more L-band transponders. IRZ provides a component for the L-band payload called MAGD-O used “for the reception and processing of signals”. It consists of several so-called “de-modulation units”, each of which can receive two L-band signals in the 1.5-2.5 GHz frequency range. MAGD-O is installed in “an unpressurized section” of the satellite and is designed to withstand exhaust plumes from stationary plasma thrusters (the Russian term for Hall-effect ion thrusters). Other elements of the L-band payload are supplied by the Kotelnikov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics. See:

https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31401641010
https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31401812055

Nothing much new has appeared on Yenisei-2 since, except for a few court documents in 2021/2022:
https://kad.arbitr.ru/Card/ad65712b-39ab-4b80-9919-b163e4eaae65
https://kad.arbitr.ru/Card/5885d3d1-ae17-4579-8835-a49a8ef8667f

These deal with contracts signed between NII Radio (responsible for the payload) and companies named NPTs Shtandart and NPTs ELTEST in 2018-2019 to test foreign-built electronic components for the satellite.

There are a couple of arguments supporting the idea that Luch-5X could be Yenisei-2: 

1) Yenisei-2’s payload definitely inherits elements from Olimp’s payload on the subsystem level.

2) the satellite has been under development since at least early 2014, ample time for it to be ready for launch by now. Development actually began before the launch of the first Olimp in September 2014. 

3) the secrecy surrounding the satellite is a clear sign is that it is not a civilian communications satellite ordered by Roscosmos. Although I speculated at the time it was a Ministry of Defense satellite, that is not specifically stated in any of the available documents. Usually, such documents refer back to the original government contract between the customer (either Roscosmos or the MoD) and the prime contractor (in this case, ISS Reshetnev), but not here.  They all trace the project back no further than February 2014, when ISS Reshetnev signed two contracts with NII Radio for payload development. The absence of any reference to the customer could be a sign that it is an unusual one, such as the FSB, the customer for Luch/Olimp.

Two instruments not linked to Olimp in the documentation (and therefore possibly unique to Yenisei-2) are MAGD-O and MPS. As I mentioned in the earlier post, MAGD-O is designed to receive and process L-band signals between 1.5-2.5 GHz. This is a frequency range typically used for mobile communications.  MPS  is designed for “the reception of information streams, their multiplexing and formation of two streams with a speed of 320 Mbps”. It has to “mask the technical characteristics of the streams” by scrambling them, which points to some type of protected communication channel. 

These descriptions are perhaps more suggestive of a communications role than the signals intelligence role that Luch-5X is expected to perform (eavesdropping on communications satellites). Also, one of the court documents mentions Yenisei-2’s on-board retranslyator, which is a Russian umbrella term for all the transponders carried aboard a communications satellite (sometimes it is also used to refer to data relay satellites, such as in sputnik-retranslyator, but not here).   

Still, this doesn’t rule out the possibility that Luch-5X is Yenisei-2. The satellite could well have a dual role, namely to eavesdrop on other satellites as well as to provide secure communication channels for the FSB.  One abbreviation seen in the documents is “BSK-2”, which stands for “On-board special complex 2”. “BSK” is usually a set of instruments that together constitute a payload, so BSK-2 would indicate there are at least two.

It should also be noted that in this particular case the distinction between communications and SIGINT may be vague. If the satellite is designed to intercept signals uplinked to other satellites, it would also have to receive and relay them to the ground like an ordinary communications satellite. The American NEMESIS satellites, which are also used to eavesdrop on geostationary communications satellites, were built on the basis of a standard communications satellite bus (Lockheed’s A2100 bus) and look like ordinary communications satellites, not carrying the huge antennas that traditional SIGINT satellites need to pick up faint radio transmissions from the ground (see attachment 1 for a drawing of NEMESIS).

Looking at it in this way, the MAGD-O and MPS instruments could just as well be intended to intercept signals intended for other satellites. The L-band frequencies that MAGD-O is designed to receive are, for instance, also used by Inmarsat satellites. This might also explain why the MPS instrument needs to scramble the signals it picks up. If these were protected signals relayed from one Russian ground station to another, one would expect the scrambling of the signal to take place before it is uplinked to the satellite and not on board the satellite itself.

Finally, more evidence that the first Luch/Olimp is not a military satellite (or at least not a dedicated military satellite) comes from an infographic published in late 2022. Luch is shown here as being part of Russia’s constellation of “social/economic, scientific and dual-purpose satellites” (see attachment 2). Luch is seen right next to Luch-5 and depicted as being identical to it. However, it is obvious that in reality it must have a completely different design.     

[russianhalo117]

It is possible that Luch-5X (the official name given to the satellite launched on 12 March) is an improved version of Olimp that is referred to in documentation as Yenisei-2 and is part of a project known internally at ISS Reshetnev as “Project 763”.

I wrote about Yenisei-2 in some detail in the thread on ISS Reshetnev satellites two years ago :
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32423.60
(Reply 78)
I’ll reproduce part of that post here:

ISS Reshetnev is working on a satellite called Yenisei-2 that was likely ordered by the Ministry of Defense. The name of this satellite appears in a brief biography of an ISS Reshetnev specialist along with a number of other military satellites (Sfera, Repei, Gerakl, Ispolin):

http://www.rusea.info/eoaywinners/11992

To the best of my knowledge, the only other information on this satellite can be found on Russia’s government procurement website, where it is the subject of some thirty contracts signed by the Radio Scientific Research Institute (NII Radio or NIIR), which is responsible for developing the satellite’s payload (or at least part of it). NIIR was awarded two separate contracts for the project by ISS Reshetnev on February 1, 2014 (nr. 018/14-026 and 019/14-026), as is apparent from documentation published here:

https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31401813297
https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=32110102781

None of the documents reveal when ISS Reshetnev itself was assigned to the project and who the customer is (Roskosmos or the Ministry of Defense). However, the dearth of information on the project as well as some of the wording used in the contracts strongly point to a military role for Yenisei-2. The name Yenisei-2 itself appears in only a handful of the contracts (only draft versions of which are available on the website). Most of them can be linked to Yenisei-2 only through the two contract numbers. Also seen in some of the contracts is ISS Reshetnev’s internal code name for Yenisei-2, namely “Project 763”. This also appears in an ISS Reshetnev contract for the delivery of nickel-iron alloys needed for the project:

https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31705326139

Most of the work subcontracted by NIIR goes back to 2014-2015, but several new contracts showed up in recent months (the most recent one last March), showing this is still an active project. Many of the older contracts were signed between NIIR and the Izhevsk Radio Factory (IRZ) and contain this line: “For the manufacturing and mechanical tests [of the component], use is to be made of stocks, technical documentation and equipment produced in the framework of the Olimp project”.  The least this indicates is that the payloads of Yenisei-2 and Olimp share common elements, but this does not necessarily mean that the satellites are used for the same purpose. One of the contracts mentioning the connection with Olimp is here:

https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31401640852

NIIR also has a role in Olimp itself, as is clear from documentation published here:

https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31200048159
https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31401189460


It can be determined from the documentation that Yenisei-2 is a geostationary satellite with a 15-year design lifetime which will carry one or more L-band transponders. IRZ provides a component for the L-band payload called MAGD-O used “for the reception and processing of signals”. It consists of several so-called “de-modulation units”, each of which can receive two L-band signals in the 1.5-2.5 GHz frequency range. MAGD-O is installed in “an unpressurized section” of the satellite and is designed to withstand exhaust plumes from stationary plasma thrusters (the Russian term for Hall-effect ion thrusters). Other elements of the L-band payload are supplied by the Kotelnikov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics. See:

https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31401641010
https://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31401812055

Nothing much new has appeared on Yenisei-2 since, except for a few court documents in 2021/2022:
https://kad.arbitr.ru/Card/ad65712b-39ab-4b80-9919-b163e4eaae65
https://kad.arbitr.ru/Card/5885d3d1-ae17-4579-8835-a49a8ef8667f

These deal with contracts signed between NII Radio (responsible for the payload) and companies named NPTs Shtandart and NPTs ELTEST in 2018-2019 to test foreign-built electronic components for the satellite.

There are a couple of arguments supporting the idea that Luch-5X could be Yenisei-2: 

1) Yenisei-2’s payload definitely inherits elements from Olimp’s payload on the subsystem level.

2) the satellite has been under development since at least early 2014, ample time for it to be ready for launch by now. Development actually began before the launch of the first Olimp in September 2014. 

3) the secrecy surrounding the satellite is a clear sign is that it is not a civilian communications satellite ordered by Roscosmos. Although I speculated at the time it was a Ministry of Defense satellite, that is not specifically stated in any of the available documents. Usually, such documents refer back to the original government contract between the customer (either Roscosmos or the MoD) and the prime contractor (in this case, ISS Reshetnev), but not here.  They all trace the project back no further than February 2014, when ISS Reshetnev signed two contracts with NII Radio for payload development. The absence of any reference to the customer could be a sign that it is an unusual one, such as the FSB, the customer for Luch/Olimp.

Two instruments not linked to Olimp in the documentation (and therefore possibly unique to Yenisei-2) are MAGD-O and MPS. As I mentioned in the earlier post, MAGD-O is designed to receive and process L-band signals between 1.5-2.5 GHz. This is a frequency range typically used for mobile communications.  MPS  is designed for “the reception of information streams, their multiplexing and formation of two streams with a speed of 320 Mbps”. It has to “mask the technical characteristics of the streams” by scrambling them, which points to some type of protected communication channel. 

These descriptions are perhaps more suggestive of a communications role than the signals intelligence role that Luch-5X is expected to perform (eavesdropping on communications satellites). Also, one of the court documents mentions Yenisei-2’s on-board retranslyator, which is a Russian umbrella term for all the transponders carried aboard a communications satellite (sometimes it is also used to refer to data relay satellites, such as in sputnik-retranslyator, but not here).   

Still, this doesn’t rule out the possibility that Luch-5X is Yenisei-2. The satellite could well have a dual role, namely to eavesdrop on other satellites as well as to provide secure communication channels for the FSB.  One abbreviation seen in the documents is “BSK-2”, which stands for “On-board special complex 2”. “BSK” is usually a set of instruments that together constitute a payload, so BSK-2 would indicate there are at least two.

It should also be noted that in this particular case the distinction between communications and SIGINT may be vague. If the satellite is designed to intercept signals uplinked to other satellites, it would also have to receive and relay them to the ground like an ordinary communications satellite. The American NEMESIS satellites, which are also used to eavesdrop on geostationary communications satellites, were built on the basis of a standard communications satellite bus (Lockheed’s A2100 bus) and look like ordinary communications satellites, not carrying the huge antennas that traditional SIGINT satellites need to pick up faint radio transmissions from the ground (see attachment 1 for a drawing of NEMESIS).

Looking at it in this way, the MAGD-O and MPS instruments could just as well be intended to intercept signals intended for other satellites. The L-band frequencies that MAGD-O is designed to receive are, for instance, also used by Inmarsat satellites. This might also explain why the MPS instrument needs to scramble the signals it picks up. If these were protected signals relayed from one Russian ground station to another, one would expect the scrambling of the signal to take place before it is uplinked to the satellite and not on board the satellite itself.

Finally, more evidence that the first Luch/Olimp is not a military satellite (or at least not a dedicated military satellite) comes from an infographic published in late 2022. Luch is shown here as being part of Russia’s constellation of “social/economic, scientific and dual-purpose satellites” (see attachment 2). Luch is seen right next to Luch-5 and depicted as being identical to it. However, it is obvious that in reality it must have a completely different design.     

AFAIU:
The Olimp-K/Luch-5X/LUCH-5Kh sats uses the Ekspress-1000NTA spacecraft bus whereas the Yenisei-A1/A2 uses the  Ekspress-2000 spacecraft bus. For any additional Yenisei family satellites I don't know.

[B. Hendrickx]

AFAIU:
The Olimp-K/Luch-5X/LUCH-5Kh sats uses the Ekspress-1000NTA spacecraft bus whereas the Yenisei-A1/A2 uses the  Ekspress-2000 spacecraft bus. For any additional Yenisei family satellites I don't know.

What's the source for Olimp-K/Luch-5X using the Ekspress-1000NTA platform?
Yenisei-A1 was supposed to use the Ekspress-4000 bus, at least according to technical specifications published for it in 2012. It was apparently seen as an experimental precursor of a mobile satellite communications system, but hasn't been heard of in years (possibly canceled). There is not necessarily a link between Yenisei-A1 and Yenisei-2. Russian satellite names can be quite misleading.

[russianhalo117]

AFAIU:
The Olimp-K/Luch-5X/LUCH-5Kh sats uses the Ekspress-1000NTA spacecraft bus whereas the Yenisei-A1/A2 uses the  Ekspress-2000 spacecraft bus. For any additional Yenisei family satellites I don't know.

What's the source for Olimp-K/Luch-5X using the Ekspress-1000NTA platform?
Yenisei-A1 was supposed to use the Ekspress-4000 bus, at least according to technical specifications published for it in 2012. It was apparently seen as an experimental precursor of a mobile satellite communications system, but hasn't been heard of in years (possibly canceled). There is not necessarily a link between Yenisei-A1 and Yenisei-2. Russian satellite names can be quite misleading.

Satellite platform selected links to Yamal-300K and Yamal-401 depending upon other present links.
https://russianspaceweb.com/olymp.html
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/olimp-k.htm

[B. Hendrickx]

Satellite platform selected links to Yamal-300K and Yamal-401 depending upon other present links.
https://russianspaceweb.com/olymp.html
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/olimp-k.htm

Neither of these sites provides any conclusive evidence for the platform(s) used by Luch/Olimp and Luch-5X. The jury remains out on this.