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

[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