Proton-M/Briz-M - Luch-5X [Olimp-K] - Baikonur - 12 March 2023 - 23:12:59.981UT

[Rondaz]

Olimp-K


Launch of Luch satellite scheduled for late November — source.

The multifunctional Luch data relay space constellation entered service in the test mode in February 2016,

7 AUG, 18:02

MOSCOW, August 8. /TASS/. The launch of a Proton-M carrier rocket with a Luch relay satellite is scheduled to take place in late November, a rocket and space industry source has told TASS.

"The launch of a Luch satellite from the Baikonur space center atop the Proton-M carrier rocket has been scheduled for late November," the source said.

The multifunctional Luch data relay space constellation entered service in the test mode in February 2016. Its purpose is to relay data to low-flying rockets and spacecraft, to altitudes below 2,000 km. In particular, the system transmits data between the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) and the Mission Control Center.

https://tass.com/science/1490593

[B. Hendrickx]

Launch of Luch satellite scheduled for late November — source.
...
The multifunctional Luch data relay space constellation entered service in the test mode in February 2016. Its purpose is to relay data to low-flying rockets and spacecraft, to altitudes below 2,000 km. In particular, the system transmits data between the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) and the Mission Control Center.

https://tass.com/science/1490593

Deliberate disinformation or ignorance on the part of TASS. Luch is a cover name here for Olimp and the satellite probably will do the same as its predecessor (launched in 2014), namely drift across the geostationary belt and regularly park itself close to other satellites, probably for eavesdropping.

[zubenelgenubi]

Cross-post:

Is there any new news regarding Luch-5X a.k.a Luch-4 a.k.a. Olimp-K?

Any indication of it launching this year?

Is Angosat-2 the only remaining Proton-M launch this year?

It is a launch on demand/as needed Kosmos payload with no leaked target date. Just a net quarter by quarter date timeframe. The current info is an industry provided Proton-M launch readiness target. Its launcher remains in post checkout storage at the launchsite with periodic checks every time the readiness target is updated. Note the information is as stated in the RSW insider content manifest of remaining Proton-M's.

[B. Hendrickx]

Launch now scheduled for December 30 according to a source on the NK forum.

[B. Hendrickx]

The launch has been delayed to 2023 according to an inside source on the NK forum. No specific date given so far.

[B. Hendrickx]

Tentatively rescheduled for January 31.

[zubenelgenubi]

The #ElectroL №4 satellite has been delivered to Baikonur this week. If everything goes by the plane, it will be the first Russian launch next year, on February 5, 2023, and one of two Proton launches in the same month. [Dec 29]

Olimp-K #2 takes the February 19 launch slot that was held by Elektro-L #4.

[Vahe231991]

The #ElectroL №4 satellite has been delivered to Baikonur this week. If everything goes by the plane, it will be the first Russian launch next year, on February 5, 2023, and one of two Proton launches in the same month. [Dec 29]

Olimp-K #2 takes the February 19 launch slot that was held by Elektro-L #4.

Any possible reason why Roscosmos has decided to launch the Olimp-K No.2 rather than the Elektro-L No.4 on February 19?

[Blackhavvk]

The #ElectroL №4 satellite has been delivered to Baikonur this week. If everything goes by the plane, it will be the first Russian launch next year, on February 5, 2023, and one of two Proton launches in the same month. [Dec 29]

Olimp-K #2 takes the February 19 launch slot that was held by Elektro-L #4.

Any possible reason why Roscosmos has decided to launch the Olimp-K No.2 rather than the Elektro-L No.4 on February 19?

No one planned to start up electro-l on February 19, never.

[zubenelgenubi]

Delayed to March 13? Cross-post:

https://kosmodrom.space/raspisanie-zapuskov
Progress MS-22 - February 9;
Soyuz MS-23 - February 20;
Proton M/Briz M - March 13;
Progress MS-24 - August 23;
Soyuz MS-24 - September 15;
Progress MS-25 - December 1.

[russianhalo117]

Delayed to March 13? Cross-post:

https://kosmodrom.space/raspisanie-zapuskov
Progress MS-22 - February 9;
Soyuz MS-23 - February 20;
Proton M/Briz M - March 13;
Progress MS-24 - August 23;
Soyuz MS-24 - September 15;
Progress MS-25 - December 1.

Giving way to range priority launch of Soyuz MS-23. No other known Proton-M/Briz-M flights are publicly scheduled in 2023.

[Bean Kenobi]

Delayed to March 13? Cross-post:

https://kosmodrom.space/raspisanie-zapuskov
Progress MS-22 - February 9;
Soyuz MS-23 - February 20;
Proton M/Briz M - March 13;
Progress MS-24 - August 23;
Soyuz MS-24 - September 15;
Progress MS-25 - December 1.

Progress MS-23 is missing...

[russianhalo117]

Delayed to March 13? Cross-post:

https://kosmodrom.space/raspisanie-zapuskov
Progress MS-22 - February 9;
Soyuz MS-23 - February 20;
Proton M/Briz M - March 13;
Progress MS-24 - August 23;
Soyuz MS-24 - September 15;
Progress MS-25 - December 1.

Progress MS-23 is missing...

Here:

https://baikonurtour.ru/launches.html
Google translate:

Launch of TGC "Progress MS-23"
May 24, 2023 admission to the group is open
Launch of TGC "Progress MS-23" on May 24, 2023.
...
Launch of TGK Progress MS-24
August 23, 2023 admission to the group is open
Launch of TGC "Progress MS-24" on August 23, 2023.

[Salo]

Proton liftoff 22:12 UTC March 12:

https://kosmodrom.space/raspisanie-zapuskov#form
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14wkV-4pXD_pGos1_BVwGVlqibP8yLpJc/view

[russianhalo117]

Cross post:

Proton liftoff 22:12 UTC March 12:

https://kosmodrom.space/raspisanie-zapuskov#form
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14wkV-4pXD_pGos1_BVwGVlqibP8yLpJc/view

[owais.usmani]

Has the rocket been taken to launch pad yet?

[russianhalo117]

Has the rocket been taken to launch pad yet?

To early and a MoD payload after LEOPS phase so might not be covered publicly to the extent of a public commercial launch.

[Blackhavvk]

It's not MoD satellite.

[russianhalo117]

It's not MoD satellite.

It's predecessor satellite received a Kosmos designation issued at the direction of the MoD its cover role as civilian Luch Satellite was busted when it has spent its whole mission eavesdropping very close to foreign commercial telecom sats with known government customers including state and defence.

[Blackhavvk]

I didn't say it was civilian.

[B. Hendrickx]

Olimp-K was ordered by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), according to an article written by Ivan Sarfonov for the "Kommersant" newspaper in 2014.
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2436687
That was back in the days when Russian journalists still had the liberty to write about things like this. Sarfonov is now serving a 22-year prison sentence after having been arrested by that very same FSB in 2020 on charges of state treason (unrelated to this article).   

[Bean Kenobi]

It's not MoD satellite.

It's predecessor satellite received a Kosmos designation issued at the direction of the MoD its cover role as civilian Luch Satellite was busted when it has spent its whole mission eavesdropping very close to foreign commercial telecom sats with known government customers including state and defence.

As far as I can remember, the first one didn't receive a Kosmos designation :

Kosmos 2500 was launched on Jun 14th, 2014.
Luch/Olimp-K was launched on Sep 27th, 2014.
Kosmos 2501 was launched on Nov 30th, 2014.

[russianhalo117]

It's not MoD satellite.

It's predecessor satellite received a Kosmos designation issued at the direction of the MoD its cover role as civilian Luch Satellite was busted when it has spent its whole mission eavesdropping very close to foreign commercial telecom sats with known government customers including state and defence.

As far as I can remember, the first one didn't receive a Kosmos designation :

Kosmos 2500 was launched on Jun 14th, 2014.
Luch/Olimp-K was launched on Sep 27th, 2014.
Kosmos 2501 was launched on Nov 30th, 2014.

https://russianspaceweb.com/olymp.html
Scroll to the bottom of the What's in the name? section. Yes there is an unresolved Kosmos designation conflict. The satellite fleet is FSB owned and is the user but the MoD is contracted to oversee the spacecrafts on orbit operations and maintenance. It is a very similar albeit reversed arrangement with US DoD use of NOAA weather satellites, see the EWS-G programme.

[B. Hendrickx]

Anatoly Zak claims the first satellite was eventually called Kosmos-2501, but doesn't give a source for that (and the page in question hasn't been updated since 2015). Press reports at the time simply called it Luch and that is also how Russia officially registered it with the United Nations, which in the end is all that counts. The satellite registered as Kosmos-2501 was a Glonass-K satellite. The fact that the first satellite didn't get a Kosmos designation would support the idea that it is owned not by the MoD, but by the FSB. It'll be interesting to see how the second one is officially named.

[russianhalo117]

Anatoly Zak claims the first satellite was eventually called Kosmos-2501, but doesn't give a source for that (and the page in question hasn't been updated since 2015). Press reports at the time simply called it Luch and that is also how Russia officially registered it with the United Nations, which in the end is all that counts. The satellite registered as Kosmos-2501 was a Glonass-K satellite. The fact that the first satellite didn't get a Kosmos designation would support the idea that it is owned not by the MoD, but by the FSB. It'll be interesting to see how the second one is officially named.

I never said that it was own by the MoD. I said that it is operated by MoD for FSB..

[Satori]

If the launch is still schedule for the 12th, then rollout should have taken place today. So, possibly was delayed.

[Alter Sachse]

There will be no information about rollout.

[Tywin]

Any livestream?

[Salo]

There will be no information about rollout.

Done!
https://t.me/roscosmos_press/957

https://rosguard.gov.ru/News/Article/sotrudniki-rosgvardii-obespechili-bezopasnost-transportirovki-raketynositelya-protonm-na-kosmodrome-bajkonur
Google translate:

Federal Service of the National Guard Troops

Employees of the Russian Guard ensured the safety of transportation of the Proton-M launch vehicle at the Baikonur Cosmodrome – News of the Russian Guard.

Employees of the private security guards of the Main Directorate of the Russian Guard in the Moscow Region, deployed on the territory of the Baikonur complex, ensured the safety of transporting the Proton-M launch vehicle, the Breeze-M upper stage and the spacecraft...

[Salo]

https://19rusinfo.ru/obshchestvo/35517-oblomki-rakety-nositelya-proton-m-upadut-v-khakasii
Google translate:

Fragments of the Proton-M launch vehicle will fall in Khakassia
  09 March 2023 15:23
According to the branch of TsENKI JSC - Yuzhny CC, the launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle with the Luch-5X spacecraft is scheduled for March 13 at 02 h. 13 min. 00 sec. Moscow time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Reserve dates and Moscow launch time:
03/14/2023 at 02 h. 11 min, 00 sec;
03/15/2023 at 02 h. 10 min. 00 sec.;
03/16/2023 at 02 h. 08 min. 00 sec.;
03/17/2023 at 02 h. 06 min. 00 sec.
To receive the second stage and the wings of the head fairing of the launch vehicle, it is planned to use the impact area No. 326, located in the municipality of the Tashtypsky district, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Republic of Kharkiv reports.

[SpaceFinnOriginal]

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

[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.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/katlinegrey/status/1634105898804051970

#ProtonM with Briz-M upper stage and Luch-5X satellite has been rolled out on March 9 on Baikonur. The launch is scheduled for March 12, 23:13 UTC. The rollout wasn’t announced by Roscosmos, because it’s a military satellite. The launch won’t be probably streamed too.

Different launch time?

[Galactic Penguin SST]

https://twitter.com/katlinegrey/status/1634105898804051970

#ProtonM with Briz-M upper stage and Luch-5X satellite has been rolled out on March 9 on Baikonur. The launch is scheduled for March 12, 23:13 UTC. The rollout wasn’t announced by Roscosmos, because it’s a military satellite. The launch won’t be probably streamed too.

Different launch time?

It's according to this:

https://19rusinfo.ru/obshchestvo/35517-oblomki-rakety-nositelya-proton-m-upadut-v-khakasii
Google translate:

Fragments of the Proton-M launch vehicle will fall in Khakassia
  09 March 2023 15:23
According to the branch of TsENKI JSC - Yuzhny CC, the launch of the Proton-M launch vehicle with the Luch-5X spacecraft is scheduled for March 13 at 02 h. 13 min. 00 sec. Moscow time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Reserve dates and Moscow launch time:
03/14/2023 at 02 h. 11 min, 00 sec;
03/15/2023 at 02 h. 10 min. 00 sec.;
03/16/2023 at 02 h. 08 min. 00 sec.;
03/17/2023 at 02 h. 06 min. 00 sec.
To receive the second stage and the wings of the head fairing of the launch vehicle, it is planned to use the impact area No. 326, located in the municipality of the Tashtypsky district, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Republic of Kharkiv reports.

[jcm]

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?

[jcm]

One might hope for a NOTAM for the thrird stage impact in the Pacific?

[Vahe231991]

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).

[jcm]

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.

[B. Hendrickx]

https://tass.ru/kosmos/17246685

TASS confirms successful orbit insertion by the Proton-M/Briz-M and calls the satellite "Luch-5X" (not clear if that is Latin "X" or Cyrillic "Kh"). It says it is part of the Luch data relay system, which is, of course, just a cover story for the satellite's true mission.

[Salo]

https://www.roscosmos.ru/39031/
Google translate:

Launch vehicle "Proton-M" launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome

Today at 02:12:59.981 Moscow time, the Proton-M launch vehicle with the Breeze-M upper stage and the Luch-5X spacecraft was launched from the 200th site of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
The carrier rocket worked in the normal mode, the upper stage separated from the third stage of the rocket and puts the satellite into a given orbit.
This is the fourth launch of Russian space rockets in 2023. For "Proton-M" this flight was the 115th, for "Breeze-M" - the 107th in history.
The launch vehicle and upper stage were manufactured by the State Space Research and Production Center named after M.V. Khrunichev (part of the Roscosmos State Corporation).
The Proton-M launch vehicle has been used since 2001 to launch payloads into various near-Earth orbits and departure trajectories within the framework of federal and commercial programs. Over the two decades of operation, it has gone through four phases of deep modernization, which made it possible to significantly improve its energy-mass and environmental characteristics. Today's launch was the 429th launch of the Proton family of rockets since 1965.

[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.

[B. Hendrickx]

After its launch last month, Luch-5X slowly drifted to 78.7°E and then began drifting backwards, coming to a stop several days ago at 58.0°E. This appears to be the place where it will be undergoing its initial orbital checkout. Assuming it is the same type of SIGINT satellite as Luch/Olimp, it should start visiting other satellites in the geostationary belt in the coming weeks or months. Therefore it's worth taking a look back at Luch/Olimp's early activities in orbit following its launch in September 2014. 

Luch/Olimp was initially placed at 54.0°E, where it spent about three months before beginning its travels around the GEO belt. The first satellite it visited was the Russian communications satellite Express-AM22, which was at 53.0°E. Several weeks later it moved over to Express-AM33, which was at  96.5°. These were the only Russian satellites that it ever visited. Presumably, they were needed to see how close Luch/Olimp had to approach them to intercept the uplink signal. Luch/Olimp came to within about 0.1° of both satellites (roughly 70 km), the same kind of distance seen during later encounters with non-Russian satellites (see the attached graph from ComSpOC showing Luch/Olimp’s move from its initial position at 54.0°E to 53.0°E).

Based on Celestrak data, Luch-5X’s closest neighbors at this point are the American military comsat WGS-F2 (USA 204) (at 57.5°E) and the Kazakh comsat Kazsat-3 (at 58.5°E). With a separation of 0.5° (which is standard between satellites in GEO), neither of these would appear to be targets of observation for Luch-5X. It is interesting, though, that there is an Express satellite very close to Luch-5X, namely Express-AT1 (at 56.0°E). Another one, Express-AM6, is a little further at 53.0°. If Luch-5X follows the same mission profile as Luch/Olimp, it could first spend a few weeks or months undergoing initial tests at 58°E before moving over to Express-AT1 to use that as a calibration target.  The current separation between them is just 2°, with three other satellites in between (WGS-F2 at 57.5°E, NSS-12 at 57°E and Inmarsat 5-F4 at 56.5°E).

[B. Hendrickx]

Luch-5X left its parking spot at 58.0°E about two weeks ago, seemingly ending its orbital check-out phase. It started drifting westward and has now come to a stop at 8.9°E. This is right next to two Eutelsat satellites parked at 9.0°E, more specifically Eutelsat KA-SAT 9A (launched in 2010) and Eutelsat 9B (launched in 2016). One or both of these would appear to be its first eavesdropping target(s). Eutelsat KA-SAT 9A (purchased by Viasat in 2020) provides broadband Internet services across Europe and Eutelsat 9B provides TV broadcasting services to Europe (including Ukraine).

Luch/Olimp, launched in 2014, has also visited several Eutelsat satellites during its travels across the geostationary belt, but not these two.

PS: "Olimp-K 2" should be replaced by "Luch-5X" in the thread title. This is the satellite's official name. 

[Steven Pietrobon]

PS: "Olimp-K 2" should be replaced by "Luch-5X" in the thread title. This is the satellite's official name. 

The correct transliteration is Luch 5Kh. :-)

https://russianalphabeteasy.com/russian-letters/h/

[Alter Sachse]

https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/osoindex/data/documents/ru/st/stsgser.e1109.html

[B. Hendrickx]

https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/osoindex/data/documents/ru/st/stsgser.e1109.html

Strictly speaking, "relaying information" is exactly what this satellite does. It intercepts information uplinked to neighboring satellites and sends it to the ground. But that is, of course, not the way this phrase will be interpreted by casual observers.

[Alter Sachse]

Currently at 9° E

[B. Hendrickx]

Currently at 9° E

It moved from 8.9° to 9.0°, meaning it is now even closer to Eutelsat KA-SAT 9A and Eutelsat-9B, both of which are also at 9.0°. So the distance between Luch-5Kh and these satellites is now less than 0.1°, which equals about 70 km. This is not unprecedented for this type of satellite. For instance, last October the first Luch/Olimp came to within 4 km of Intelsat 37E. This is according to analysts of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, a US company which operates a global network of RF antennas capable of pinpointing satellite locations within 100 meters.

https://www.kratosdefense.com/constellations/articles/espionage-in-orbit-satellite-or-spy

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) sets tolerances for orbital slots at or above ± 0.1 degrees, ensuring GEO satellites maintain a separation distance greater than 70 km. Luch Olymp’s operators appear to disregard these conventions. Figure 5 (attached) plots the separation distance between Luch Olymp and Intelsat 37E, showing only a 4 km delta on October 31, 2022.

Luch/Olimp has been sitting next to Intelsat 37E since last summer, which is significantly longer than visits it has paid to other satellites. Kratos' analysts see several possible reasons for this, including the launch of Luch-5Kh:

This may indicate a need to limit fuel consumption or that the SIGINT opportunity on Intelsat 37E remains relevant and fruitful.

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine may also play a factor. Luch Olymp’s current orbital slot supports trans-Atlantic traffic from Europe, North America and Africa. So, it hosts a variety of users that may be of interest to the Russian government. Based on observed offensive actions in the space domain since February 2022, this longitude appears strategic to support Russian operations in Ukraine.

Another possibility is that Russia is leaving “Big Brother” parked because a new “little brother” is taking over its mission. On March 12, 2023, Russia launched Luch Olymp-K-2, reportedly carrying similar payloads to the earlier model. With a decade of additional technology development available to Olymp-K-2, it likely packs more advanced SIGINT capabilities and operational techniques. Luch Olymp was never the most subtle spy satellite. Time will tell if Olymp-K-2 shares its affinity for overt espionage.

Kratos sees the close approach of Luch/Olimp to Intelsat 37E as a violation of ITU rules, but we shouldn't forget that the US also operates several satellites of this type in GEO (both for eavesdropping and visual inspection), which may make equally close passes to other satellites. China has done exactly the same with its TJS-3 satellite, which reportedly approached USA 233 (a military comsat) as close as 6.2 km last October, on exactly the same day that Luch/Olimp had its close encounter with Intelsat 37E. More on that here:
https://www.space.com/chinese-spacecraft-tjs-3-inspecting-us-satellites

[Targeteer]

https://twitter.com/Marco_Langbroek/status/1694052972982850036

[B. Hendrickx]

PS: "Olimp-K 2" should be replaced by "Luch-5X" in the thread title. This is the satellite's official name. 

The correct transliteration is Luch 5Kh. :-)

https://russianalphabeteasy.com/russian-letters/h/

Looks like it is Luch-5X (with Latin X) after all. First, this is how the satellite was registered with the United Nations in various languages (including English). Second, in a TsENKI webcast of the launch the commentator pronounces the "X" as the Latin letter "X" (sounding as "iks" when pronounced by a Russian) and not as the Cyrillic "X" (which is a velar fricative that has no equivalent in standard English, although it is sometimes heard in Scottish English in Gaelic words such as loch (lake)).

By the way, the TsENKI webcast of the launch, which begins just one minute before T-0, is on YouTube. I'm not sure if it was shown live (and if it was, nobody seems to have noticed it). The launch took place in thick fog and the rocket was barely visible. That means the only picture that Roscosmos released with its launch announcement was most likely a file photo. 





 

[Josh_from_Canada]

Could someone who speaks Russian share the serial number(s) of the Briz-M and/or Proton-M that was stated in the video

[B. Hendrickx]

Could someone who speaks Russian share the serial number(s) of the Briz-M and/or Proton-M that was stated in the video

The serial numbers are not given in the video.

[B. Hendrickx]

According to data from Celestrak, Luch-5X has left its parking spot at 8.9°E, where it spent more than four months in the immediate vicinity of Eutelsat-KA-SAT 9A and Eutelsat 9B. It has begun drifting westward and is most likely headed for its next target. It is currently at 7.5°E.

[B. Hendrickx]

Luch-5X has come to a stop at 3.2°E, right next to Eutelsat 3B (3.1°E). This looks like it will become its next eavesdropping target. Eutelsat 3B was launched in 2014. Here's some background on the satellite from Eutelsat's website:

EUTELSAT 3B is a tri-band satellite for markets in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and South America. Located at 3° East, the satellite is optimised for customers operating broadband, data, telecom and video services in a vast footprint spanning from Brazil to Central Asia. With up to 51 transponders, EUTELSAT 3B offers satellite resources in Ku, C and Ka-band connected to fixed and steerable antennas for maximum flexibility. This enables users to select the most relevant frequency band for different types of service. Ku and C-band capacity is optimised for broadcast and data markets. High throughput beams in the Ka-band are ideal for innovative applications in bandwidth demanding markets.

This is the third Eutelsat visited by Luch-5X. Eutelsat satellites were also a popular target for Luch/Olimp, with six visits between 2016 and 2021. Intelsat tops the list with 12 visits.

[owais.usmani]

Why eavesdrop on all these commercial satellites instead of military ones?

[Alter Sachse]

Why eavesdrop on all these commercial satellites instead of military ones?

I think the communication of the military satellites will be encrypted.

[owais.usmani]

Why eavesdrop on all these commercial satellites instead of military ones?

I think the communication of the military satellites will be encrypted.

So what do they get from eavesdroping on these commercial satellites? Super Bowl and Lady Gaga concerts maybe? or they looking for something else from them?

[B. Hendrickx]

Why eavesdrop on all these commercial satellites instead of military ones?

A good question that has not been satisfactorily addressed in the articles written on these eavesdropping satellites.
Kratos, a US company that has been keeping a close eye on Olimp's maneuvers, offers this explanation:

https://www.kratosdefense.com/constellations/articles/espionage-in-orbit-satellite-or-spy

Why is Russia interested in spying on satellites run by commercial companies? Because of their customers. U.S. and European militaries spend billions to lease bandwidth from commercial satellite operators like Intelsat and Eutelsat. These links may carry a variety of mission traffic, from unmanned aircraft video feeds to mobile ground unit communications.

America's PAN and CLEO satellites (part of the NEMESIS program), which perform similar missions, also seem to target commercial satellites. It's been speculated that one of their tasks was to pick up telephone communications to geolocate targets for drone strikes.

But there's probably also industrial/economic espionage through interception of telephone and data traffic. As became known from the Snowden leaks, the US uses its ORION SIGINT satellites for collecting economic information. Two of them were parked close to the Thuraya-2, a mobile communications satellite. In an article on the US eavesdropping satellites, Marco Langbroek wrote this:
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3095/1

The leaked documents contain a few more interesting facts. While we have mostly talked about a role for Space-based SIGINT in the context of the drone war, counter-insurgency, and military conflict, the second of the leaked documents mentions yet another role: collecting economic information.

While economic information can be of legitimate military interest, it also has a potential strategic commercial value. This feeds my privately-held concern about whether the close eavesdropping on certain commercial telecommunications satellites also collects useful information from the viewpoint of industrial espionage. For non-US (e.g. European) companies and industries that might be the target of such espionage, this is something to consider. When you use your Thuraya satellite telephone or a satellite-based Internet connection to discuss your latest prospective bids for, say, building a harbor in Saudi Arabia, oil prospection in Jordan, or securing a large order of airliners from Qatar with the main office back home, the US government might be listening in and forwarding the info to interested US rival companies, to the latter’s benefit.

[russianhalo117]

Why eavesdrop on all these commercial satellites instead of military ones?

I think the communication of the military satellites will be encrypted.

So what do they get from eavesdroping on these commercial satellites? Super Bowl and Lady Gaga concerts maybe? or they looking for something else from them?

Hosted payloads and lower level defense communications via commercial assets.

[B. Hendrickx]

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4696/1

Olimp and Yenisei-2: Russia’s secretive eavesdropping satellites (part 1)
by Bart Hendrickx

On March 12 this year, a Proton-M rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, punching its way through a dense layer of fog that only thickened the veil of secrecy surrounding the launch. Although Baikonur is now a civilian launch site that is no longer used for military launches, Roscosmos did not stream the launch live and afterwards reported only that a satellite named Luch-5X had been placed into orbit to test “advanced relay and communication technology.” Its mission is reminiscent of that of another Russian satellite launched in September 2014. Announced simply as Luch, it has spent the past nine years traversing the geostationary belt and regularly parking itself close to commercial communications satellites with the apparent goal of eavesdropping on them.

This is an attempt to collect all the information on these satellites that can be extracted from open sources. Part 1 focuses on their design features, the maneuvers they have made in geostationary orbit and the satellites they have visited. Evidence is given that Luch-5X is a significantly modified version of Luch that is referred to in official documentation as Yenisei-2. As has been known for a long time, Luch is a cover name for Olimp. 

[B. Hendrickx]

Part 2 of the article on the eavesdropping satellites is now up on The Space Review:

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4699/1

Evidence is presented that the organization behind the eavesdropping satellites is Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), a claim initially made by the Kommersant newspaper in 2014. It looks like the project was started early this century under FAPSI (the equivalent of the US National Security Agency) and was then transferred to the FSB’s SIGINT division (the so-called “16th Center”) after FAPSI was disbanded in 2003.

A key role in the project was apparently assigned to NII Radio, which has close ties with the 16th Center and the FSB Academy. The company has produced a wide range of ground-based satellite dish antennas for the 16th Center, at least some of which (named Rebus) may be intended to communicate with the eavesdropping satellites. Some of these antennas are situated at an FSB site near Chekhov some 70 km south of Moscow (see attachment 1).

NII Radio has also provided at least part of the payload for the satellites. This appears to include multibeam antennas that are described in some joint NII Radio/FSB publications and are also seen in what may well be the only publicly available drawing of Olimp (see attachment 2). Also on board are L-band payloads that could be designed to convert intercepted signals to lower frequencies before they are downlinked to the ground. Another possibility is that they are used for mobile communications in the interests of the government and/or Russian intelligence agencies.

Also discussed are a handful of ISS Reshetnev patents that may shed light on plans for future eavesdropping satellites.

[B. Hendrickx]

Luch-5X left its position at 3.2°E on December 3/4 and has now parked at 2.6°E, right next to Eutelsat Konnect VHTS, which is at 2.7°E. This satellite was launched by an Ariane 5 rocket in September last year and was declared operational just a couple of weeks ago. Like the two other satellites visited so far by Luch-5X (ViaSat’s KA-SAT and Eutelsat 3B), it has high-throughput capability in the Ka-band.  This is a description of the satellite from the website of Thales Alenia, its manufacturer:

EUTELSAT KONNECT VHTS satellite, a very high throughput satellite built for the international operator Eutelsat, will deliver high-speed broadband and mobile connectivity across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. With a Ka-band capacity of 500 Gbps, it is the largest and most capacitive geostationary communications satellite ever built in Europe. The satellite embarks the most powerful on-board digital processor ever put in orbit, offering capacity allocation flexibility and an optimum spectrum use.

EUTELSAT KONNECT VHTS is the satellite of all the superlatives: it is about 9 meters high, as tall as a three-story building, with a wingspan of more than 45 meters and a launch mass of 6,4 metric tons. With a design life exceeding 15 years, the satellite is built on a full electric Spacebus NEO platform from Thales Alenia Space and developed with the support of French and European space agency’s CNES and ESA.

This new-generation satellite, harbouring a capacity seven times that of its brother satellite EUTELSAT KONNECT launched in 2020, will help bridge the digital divide by providing very high-speed Internet access across Europe, especially in isolated regions with poor coverage. The HTS services, available on the ground, in the air and at sea, anywhere and anytime in the covered area, will be comparable to a fiber-optic network’s performance and services.

The fact that Luch-5X focuses on high-throughput Ka-band satellites is probably no coincidence. As I explained in my recent articles for “The Space Review”, the satellite appears to be equipped with a system that intercepts Ka-band signals and then converts them to lower frequency L-band signals before relaying them to the ground.  Luch-5X most likely is a cover name for Yenisei-2.

[jcm]

Bart, at one point it was claimed that the Orlets-class Kosmos-2372 LEO spy sat had the name Yenisey.  Is this no longer thought to be correct?

[B. Hendrickx]

Bart, at one point it was claimed that the Orlets-class Kosmos-2372 LEO spy sat had the name Yenisey.  Is this no longer thought to be correct?

Yenisei is indeed an alternative name seen for the Orlets-2 (17F113) reconnaissance satellites, two of which were launched by the Zenit-2 rocket in 1994 and 2000 (Kosmos-2290 and 2372).

The Russians have a tradition of recycling names in their space program. For instance, Yenisei-2 was the name of the imaging system of the Luna-3 probe that took the first pictures of the far side of the Moon in 1959. The name Yenisei has also been used for a future heavy-lift launch vehicle. And ISS Reshetnev has used it for what appear to be two totally unrelated satellites, Yenisei-A1 (an experimental mobile communications satellite that has probably been canceled) and Yenisei-2 (the successor of Olimp). Hard to say whether this is just a lack of imagination or a deliberate attempt to confuse outsiders. The choice of these names may also have something to do with the fact that the Yenisei river flows through Krasnoyarsk, the Siberian town not far from ISS Reshetnev's headquarters in Zheleznogorsk. 

[B. Hendrickx]

After spending nearly four months at 2.6°E (right next to Eutelsat Konner VHTS), Luch-5X has relocated to 4.6°E. This is close to Astra 4A, which is at 4.8°E. Astra 4A (launched as Sirius 4 back in 2007) provides digital television and radio broadcasts, data and interactive services to Nordic countries, Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. An important customer is Ukraine.

The relocation comes as Ukrainian broadcasters reported jamming of some of the Astra A4 signals last Thursday.
 
https://belsat.eu/en/news/29-03-2024-ukrainian-broadcaster-reports-severe-russian-disruption-of-the-astra-satellite-which-led-to-the-jamming-of-the-belsat-tv-signal

Ukrainian broadcaster reports severe Russian disruption of the Astra satellite, which led to the jamming of the Belsat TV signal.

According to a report by the Ukrainian media company 1+1 Media, the signal transmitted via the Astra4A satellite was interfered with on Thursday, resulting in the jamming of signals of Ukrainian TV stations. The Telekom-kruzhok Telegram channel also reported that this interference affected the Belsat TV program transmitted by the same satellite.

Since the beginning of March, the Russian Federation has been actively jamming the satellite signal of Ukrainian TV channels on the Astra4A and Hotbird13E satellites, which belong to the European telecommunications companies SES and Eutelsat. 1+1 Media, the owner of eight Ukrainian TV channels, expressed its concern in an official statement.

The Russians not only jammed the signal but also replaced Ukrainian programs with propaganda content of the Russian Federation. Ukrainian broadcasters restored the transmission of their programs on Thursday.

– However, this is not the last attempt of the Russian Federation to interfere with the content of Ukrainian television channels to disorient the public and spread hostile narratives, Especially in the areas near the temporarily occupied towns and villages – it was also written in the statement.

Meanwhile, Telekom-kruzhok, a Telegram channel representing associations of telecommunications specialists, observed that Belsat TV, available on the Astra4 satellite, was also experiencing broadcasting issues.

The Russians continue to disrupt the signal on the Astra 4A satellite. This time, it was the Belsat channel. What will the reaction of Polish viewers be? Is this not an important issue?)) —says the channel’s comment.

The Telekom-kruzhok post included screenshots that revealed disruptions during the Thursday morning rebroadcast of the Ukrainian news program Yedyni Novyny on the Belsat channel.

In January, the Russian-language editorial team of Belsat Vot-tak.tv, which includes a website and a TV channel, was labeled as a foreign agent by the Russian authorities. This move could lead to repression against the station’s employees working in Russia.

More details on the jamming of the Astra 4A signal on 28 March from the website of 1+1 Media:

https://media.1plus1.ua/en/news/reakciia-11-media-na-sprobi-voroga-zaglusiti-suputnikove-movlennia-ukrayini

Today, on 28 March 2024, a large-scale external interference with the broadcasting of Ukrainian TV on the Astra4A satellite took place. In particular, around 9:30 a.m., the enemy tried to jam the broadcasts of 1+1 media's own and partner TV channels at 11766H, where, in particular, 1+1 Ukraine, 1+1 Marathon, TET, PLUSPLUS, Bigudi, 2+2, UNIAN and other channels are broadcast. Thus, instead of the United News telethon and content from other broadcasters, Ukrainian viewers saw Russian propaganda content for some time.

As of 11am, the problem was fixed and satellite broadcasting was restored. However, this is not the last attempt by Russia to jam the content of Ukrainian TV channels to disorient society and spread hostile narratives, especially in the territories bordering the temporarily occupied cities and villages.

Attached is an example of the distorted signal.

There are at least three reasons to believe that Luch-5X is not directly involved in the jamming on 28 March:
1) neither Luch-5X nor is predecessor Luch/Olimp have demonstrated any jamming capability and appear to be purely passive eavesdropping satellites
2) I understand Luch-5X hadn't yet arrived at its new location on that day
3) the jamming reportedly began in early March and also affected at least one other satellite (Hotbird 13E), which is not being shadowed by any Russian satellites. This strongly indicates the jamming is being done from the ground. A report by broadcaster "Suspilne Ukraine" (which also uses Astra 4A) on 14 March pointed the finger at the Medvezhi Ozyora space communications center near Moscow (but without giving any evidence for that):
https://imi.org.ua/en/news/russians-target-suspilne-s-satellite-signal-i59943

Still, the fact that Luch-5X is visiting Astra 4A right after the reported jamming can hardly be a coincidence. What the exact connection is remains open to speculation.

[Targeteer]

https://twitter.com/Marco_Langbroek/status/1779268451032236246

[B. Hendrickx]

Here is another picture of Luch-5X and Astra 4A taken by Marco Langbroek under better conditions on April 16. Also visible in the picture on the far right is Eutelsat Konnect VHTS, the previous target of Luch-5X.

Meanwhile, further disruptions of Ukrainian broadcasts via Astra 4A were reported on April 17.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/04/17/7451697/
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-11-media-group-reports-cyberattack-satellite-tv-channels-2024-04-17/

These are the first reported disruptions after Luch-5X arrived at its new location next to Astra 4A on April 2. It is still unlikely though that Luch-5X itself is responsible for the jamming. Similar disruptions were reported on the same day of Ukrainian broadcats relayed via Eutelsat Hotbird 13G, which is not being shadowed by any Russian satellites.

One Ukrainian blogger puts the blame on "stationary and mobile jamming stations", one of them being the Bear Lakes (Medvezhi Ozyora) space communicatons center near Moscow. No evidence for that has been given as of yet.
https://twitter.com/MrKovalenko/status/1780590277519929573

[Steven Pietrobon]

What Luch 5X could be doing is monitoring the frequencies of Ukrainian signals that are broadcast to the satellite (the uplink) where the signal is amplified and changed in frequency for broadcast to ground receivers (the downlink). A Russian ground station could then send a jamming signal at the same frequency as the uplink frequency, causing the downlink signal to be effectively jammed.

Future commercial satellites may add anti-jamming filtering, where the signal from the jammer can be reduced in strength by applying an electronic filter to where the location of the jammer is on Earth.

https://www.criticalcomms.com.au/content/radio-systems/news/autonomous-anti-jamming-for-us-satcom-program-1218736830

[B. Hendrickx]

What Luch 5X could be doing is monitoring the frequencies of Ukrainian signals that are broadcast to the satellite (the uplink) where the signal is amplified and changed in frequency for broadcast to ground receivers (the downlink). A Russian ground station could then send a jamming signal at the same frequency as the uplink frequency, causing the downlink signal to be effectively jammed.

Interesting idea, but those frequencies are openly available. See, for instance, here:
http://frequencyplansatellites.altervista.org/Astra/Astra_4A.pdf
So you wouldn't need a satellite to monitor them. And, again, the same is being done with Ukrainian broadcasts via Eutelsat Hotbird 13E and 13G, which are not being monitored by any Russian satellites. So it doesn't look like Luch-5X is doing anything that actually enables the jamming to take place.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Interesting idea, but those frequencies are openly available. See, for instance, here:
http://frequencyplansatellites.altervista.org/Astra/Astra_4A.pdf
So you wouldn't need a satellite to monitor them. And, again, the same is being done with Ukrainian broadcasts via Eutelsat Hotbird 13E and 13G, which are not being monitored by any Russian satellites. So it doesn't look like Luch-5X is doing anything that actually enables the jamming to take place.

Yes, but there are many different uplink frequencies. You don't want to waste resources and annoy other Astra users by jamming them all! As for the Hotbird satellites, Russia may be using other technical means to find out which uplink frequencies are being used by Ukraine.

[B. Hendrickx]

Yes, but there are many different uplink frequencies. You don't want to waste resources and annoy other Astra users by jamming them all!

Here is a list of TV channels using Astra 4A:
https://www.lyngsat.com/Astra-4A.html
There are several "frequency beams" (which I understand correspond to individual transponders), each of which serves a number of TV stations. What the Russians have been doing is to target one entire transponder (11766 H), jamming 39 TV channels at the same time. So they haven't been particularly selective.

[Targeteer]

https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2024/04/dark-moves-at-geosynchronous-altitude.html

A number of SIGINT satellites in geosynchronous orbit have been moving lately. A small roundup:

There is the brand new SIGINT satellite Mentor 10 (USA 353, 2024-067A) that is slowly drifting westwards to its operational position by ~1.35 degrees per day, since its launch and initial insertion at longitude 100 E on April 9. This was discussed in this previous blogpost.

But an earlier Mentor (also known as ADVANCED ORION), Mentor 6 (2012-034A), has also been moving recently, from longitude 55.6 E to 51.1 E. This move happened somewhere between the second week of January and the second week of April. The image above shows it on April 16.

The Russians too have recently moved one of their SIGINT satellites again, LUCH (Olymp) 2 (2023-031A). It has now been placed near longitude 4.75 E, close to the commercial satellite ASTRA 4A. The daily distance of LUCH (Olymp) 2 to ASTRA 4A varies between 20 and 70 km. The move was initiated on March 26 and completed by April 2, 2024. The image below shows it on April 16:

[Steven Pietrobon]

There are several "frequency beams" (which I understand correspond to individual transponders), each of which serves a number of TV stations. What the Russians have been doing is to target one entire transponder (11766 H), jamming 39 TV channels at the same time. So they haven't been particularly selective.

Of those 39 channels, there are only eight (20.5%) that are non Ukrainian, of which six are Russian and two are erotic, so no great loss there!

[B. Hendrickx]

https://www.space.com/russian-inspector-satellite-luch-2-close-approach-geostationary-orbit
(includes video)

See a Russian inspector satellite get up close and personal with a spacecraft in orbit

A Russian military satellite named Luch-2 was found closely approaching a geostationary satellite last month, a maneuver that follows in the footsteps of its predecessor that was found eavesdropping on other nations' satellites on multiple occasions since 2014.

Aldoria, a French startup that tracks satellites in orbit using a network of ground-based telescopes, alerted satellite operators in May 2024 that it had detected "a sudden close approach" by the Russian Luch-2 to a satellite positioned in geostationary orbit. The maneuver by Luch-2 occurred on April 12, 2024 about 22,232 miles (35,780 kilometers) from Earth's surface, the company said in a statement.

Aldoria did not disclose what satellite Luch-2 might have been spying on or precisely how close it approached the object. The minimum distance between the two objects was 6.2 miles (10 kilometers), while today (June 3) they are about 12 to 30 miles apart (20 to 50 kilometers), Saloua Moutaoufik, Aldoria's public relations manager, told Space.com in an email.
...

Pretty shallow reporting by Space.com. With a little effort they could have found out that the satellite is Astra 4A and that, coincidentally or not, it has been the target of Russian jamming in recent weeks. This has so far not been picked up even by the specialized press, so it would have been a nice scoop for them.

[Targeteer]

https://twitter.com/Marco_Langbroek/status/1806300741662916898

[B. Hendrickx]

Luch-5X has come to a stop at 0.56°W. The satellite closest to it is Thor-7, located at 0.67°W. Two other Thor satellites are also nearby (Thor-5 at 0.76°W and Thor-6 at 0.87°W), but the target appears to be Thor-7, which is the newest of the three satellites (launched in April 2015). Unlike the two earlier satellites, it has a high throughput Ka-band payload, a feature also seen on three of the four satellites earlier visited by Luch-5X. As explained earlier here, there is evidence that Luch-5X (Yenisei-2) has a payload that converts intercepted Ka-band signals to L-band signals for transmission to the ground.

Here’s some background on Thor-7:
https://spaceflight101.com/spacecraft/thor-7/

Thor-7 is a commercial geostationary communications satellite operated by Telenor, Norway, and built by Space Systems Loral, California. The satellite carries a Ku/Ka-Band payload to deliver broadband communications to European and surrounding regions.
…
The Thor-7 satellite carries a Ku-Band payload consisting of 21 transponders and a 25-transponder Ka-Band system capable of providing spotbeam coverage to several regions. The Ku-Band payload delivers service to Central and Eastern Europe from as far south as Greece and Italy to the northernmost regions of Norway and the Barents Sea, and from the western region of Norway as far east as the Ukraine. The Ku-Band payload is used to serve the growing broadcasting demands in the region.

The Ka-Band system of the satellite delivers a number of spot beams to cover key maritime areas including the North Sea, Norwegian Sea, Red Sea, Baltic Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. High data rate broadband services are offered to the maritime industry by the Thor 7 satellite with a total of 25 simultaneously active spotbeams with a data throughput up to 9 Gbps. User data rates will be between 2 and 6 Mbps and spot beam handover is seamless.

The US space tracking company Slingshot Aerospace had predicted that the next target would be Intelsat 10-02 at 1.0° W, a satellite earlier visited twice by Luch-5X’s predecessor Luch/Olimp. See this recent story on “Space News”:
https://spacenews.com/russian-spy-satellite-reportedly-continues-suspicious-maneuvers/

[B. Hendrickx]

A picture made by Marco Langbroek confirms that Thor-7 is the new target for Luch-5X.

https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/
https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-russian-sigint-satellite-luch-olymp.html?m=1

In a previous blogpost I signalled that the Russian military SIGINT satellite LUCH (OLYMP) 2 (2023-031A), also known as LUCH-5X, a satellite that stalks other satellites, started another relocation move on July 22, leaving its position near ASTRA 4A at longitude 4.8 E and drifting west at 0.9 degrees per day.

On July 1, the drift stopped as it arrived at its new target destination at longitude 0.54 W. As expected, it has been placed close to yet another western commercial geosynchronous satellite: the Norwegian satellite THOR 7 (2015-022A).

The image above shows both satellites - plus a couple of other neighbouring ones - as imaged by me from Leiden in the night of July 6/7, when I finally had clear skies again, albeit briefly. The image is a 10-second exposure taken with a ZWO ASI 6200 MM PRO + 1.2/85 mm lens.

At the moment the image was taken, LUCH (OLYMP) 2 and THOR 7 were some 84 km apart. That distance might diminish further: the Russian satellite is still slowly drifting closer to THOR 7.

[B. Hendrickx]

Luch-5X has made a small hop from 0.5°W (its position near Thor 7) to 0.9°W. It is now parked next to Intelsat-10-02, which is at 0.1°W. Intelsat-10-02 was launched with a Proton-M rocket back in June 2004 and has 36 Ku-band and 70 C-band transponders providing television, data, and other telecommunication services to Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In April 2021 it docked with Mission Extension Vehicle 2 (MEV 2), which took the image below.

For some reason, Intelsat-10-02 appears to be of particular interest to the Russians. It was already visited twice by Luch-5X's predecessor Luch/Olimp in 2016 and 2020.

[zubenelgenubi]

<snip>
For some reason, Intelsat-10-02 appears to be of particular interest to the Russians. It was already visited twice by Luch-5X's predecessor Luch/Olimp in 2016 and 2020.

Maybe Russian intelligence thinks Intelsat 10-02 relays communications of interest to them?

Or maybe they are decrypting streaming services for oligarchic entertainment? 🤔☺️ Like stealing cable TV back in the 70s/80s. 📺

Is there any intelligence that they could gather regarding MEV-2?

[B. Hendrickx]

Is there any intelligence that they could gather regarding MEV-2?

Very unlikely. This satellite and its predecessor specialize in eavesdropping on foreign communications satellites. And the earlier satellite (Luch/Olimp) visited Intelsat-10-02 before the arrival of MEV-2.

More on Luch-5X's latest move in this blogpost by Marco Langbroek:

https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2024/

[B. Hendrickx]

Worth adding that MEV-2 has three cameras on board that were used during the approach to Intelsat-10-02 in April 2021. There's a video of the approach here:
https://www.northropgrumman.com/space/space-logistics-services

Theoretically, these cameras could also be used to make images of Luch-5X, but since they were facing Intelsat during the approach, their field of view probably became blocked by Intelsat after the docking.

[zubenelgenubi]

https://twitter.com/s2a_systems/status/1888298971648454873

s2a systems @s2a_systems
LUCH (OLYMP) 2 is back on tour.

[B. Hendrickx]

After a one-month trek across the geostationary belt, Luch-5X has come to a stop at 62.0°E. Its new target is Intelsat 39, stationed at 61.9°E. Intelsat 39 was launched by an Ariane-5 rocket in August 2019. This is how it is described in an Intelsat fact sheet:

Intelsat 39, which is designed with wide and high-powered steerable spot beams, replaced Intelsat 902 at 62°E, to meet the needs of broadband networking, video and government customers across Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.The satellite will have C-and Ku-band capabilities and enhanced mobile connectivity for aero, maritime and government users operating in the Indian Ocean region. Intelsat 39 provides a powerful platform that will enable mobile network operators,enterprises and internet service providers to deliver faster and more efficient connectivity services. In addition, it will provide governments with the ability to expand connectivity to additional remote areas and continue to narrow the digital divide.

Intelsat 39 was earlier visited by Luch-5X's predecessor Luch/Olimp, which spent several months in its immediate vicinity in 2022. Luch-5X's previous target, Intelsat-10-02, had also earlier been visited by Luch/Olimp. All in all, the two Luch satellites have visited about a dozen satellites belonging to the Intelsat family. Luch/Olimp is still parked near Intelsat 33E at 18.0°W, where it has been for about 2.5 years.

Intelsat satellites have also been key targets of observation for a network of ground-based eavesdropping stations operated by Russia's intelligence services (KGB/FSB and GRU) since the 1960s/1970s. I discussed these in a recent article for The Space Review:
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4923/1
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4926/1

Luch (Olimp) and Luch-5X (Yenisei-2) appear to be the space-based components of the FSB network and undoubtedly offer capabilities that the ground-based COMINT collection sites do not have.

Unlike the ground-based COMINT collection stations, which can receive only downlink, the Luch satellites should be capable of intercepting signals uplinked to target satellites. This has several possible advantages. It would enable them to geolocate transmitters as well as chart uplink frequencies, which in turn could help jam some of the transponders. Besides that, they should be capable of monitoring traffic that cannot be picked up by the ground stations. Only some of the downlink beams of the target satellites are visible from Russian territory. Instead of employing wide beams, modern high-throughput communications satellites utilize multiple spot beams to cover relatively small service areas. There is evidence that at least one payload aboard Luch-5X is designed to pick up such narrow beams at Ka-band frequencies and then convert them to L-band for downlink to ground stations.

[Targeteer]

For some reason I'm getting a "tweet doesn't exist" error.  It does.  https://twitter.com/lukOlejnik/status/1898836732918788553 Lukasz Olejnik @lukOlejnik
Russian SIGINT/SATING station in Vienna is doing something very interesting! Vienna’s SIGINT/SATCOM station is intercepting C-band communications from Eutelsat 3B, Eutelsat 10B, SES-5, and Rascom QAF1, satellites covering Africa and connecting to UN offices, embassies, oil fields, and military bases.
But there's more. Olymp-K2, a Russian Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO)-capable satellite, executes highly unusual maneuvers by moving close to Western satellites instead of staying in a fixed position. RPO allows Olymp-K2 to approach, observe, and potentially interact with other satellites—disrupt, hijack, sabotage.
Olymp-K2’s dangerous proximity enables it to intercept unencrypted control signals sent from Earth to satellites. These commands control satellite positioning, antennas, and data routing.

[B. Hendrickx]

There were several close encounters between Luch-5X and Intelsat-10-2 before the former departed the Intelsat satellite on February 6. On January 29, the two may have come as close as 100 to 200 meters. The encounters were the result of minor altitude corrections made by Intelsat-10-02, not Luch-5X. Whether these were made intentionally to bring Intelsat closer to Luch-5X is hard to say. During the January 29 encounter, the solar phase angle was ideal for imaging of Luch-5X. While Intelsat-10-02 has no cameras, the attached Mission Extension Vehicle 2 does. It’s not clear though if they could have been used to take pictures of Luch-5X. Their field of view may be blocked by Intelsat.

More on these close encounters in a recent issue of "The Integrity Flash":

https://isruniversity.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/115-24-Feb-2025-Integrity-Flash.pdf

[Star One]

How Russia is intercepting communications from European satellites

https://theconversation.com/how-russia-is-intercepting-communications-from-european-satellites-276094