Soyuz-2.1a/Fregat - Neitron #1 - Plesetsk 43/4 - 5 February 2022 (07:00 UTC)

[Int.RocketLaunches]

Launch

Fairing logo and animation labels say 'Arktika-M #1'  not 'Neitron'

Also, the launch in this video is from Baikonur when in reality Neitron launched from Plesetsk. This video shows footage from a launch in Feb 2021.

Images of today's launch:

[B. Hendrickx]

According to information emerging from the NK forum, the Fregat performed just a single burn and separated from the satellite at around 11.20 Moscow time (8.20 UTC). Good telemetry received from the Fregat on the second orbit. Fregat re-entry expected at 12.47 MT (9.20 UTC). The satellite should have ended up in a roughly 2000 km circular orbit.

[B. Hendrickx]

https://www.militarynews.ru/story.asp?rid=1&nid=566121&lang=RU

Interfax-AVN quotes the Ministry of Defense as saying that the satellite has been placed into the intended orbit and is working normally. It's been designated Kosmos-2553.

[B. Hendrickx]

Interfax now confirming that the Fregat has been de-orbited.

[B. Hendrickx]

The Ministry of Defense is officially describing Kosmos-2553 as "a technological satellite equipped with newly developed on-board instruments and systems in order to test them in conditions of radiation and heavy charged particles". Well, better than nothing...

[Conexion Espacial]

Roscosmos confirmation
https://twitter.com/roscosmos/status/1489940085013417990

[Conexion Espacial]

Some images before the launch shared by Roscosmos.

On Saturday, February 5 at 10:00 (Moscow time) from the State Test Cosmodrome of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (Plesetsk Cosmodrome) in Arkhangelsk Oblast, the combat crew of the Space Forces of the Aerospace Forces successfully launched a medium-class launch vehicle Soyuz-2.1a " with a spacecraft (SC) in the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defense.


The launch of the carrier rocket and the launch of the spacecraft into the calculated orbit were carried out in the normal mode. Two minutes after the launch, the Soyuz-2 launch vehicle was accepted for escort by the ground controls of the German Titov Main Space Test Center.


At the estimated time, the spacecraft was launched to the target orbit and accepted for control by the ground facilities of the Space Forces of the Aerospace Forces Space Forces. A stable telemetry link has been established and maintained with the spacecraft, its on-board systems operating in normal mode. The spacecraft was assigned the serial number Kosmos-2553.


The Kosmos-2553 technological spacecraft is equipped with newly developed on-board instruments and systems for testing under the influence of radiation and heavy charged particles.


After the spacecraft was put into orbit, officials of the Space Control Center entered information about it into the Main Catalog of Space Objects of the Russian Space Control System, and proceeded to analyze and process information about the new space object to accept it for tracking by ground facilities of the Main Space Intelligence Center VKS Space Forces.


In total, more than 40 ground-based measuring instruments and more than 70 combat teams of the 15th Army of the Aerospace Special Forces were involved in ensuring the launch of the Russian Defense Ministry's spacecraft.

[GWR64]

I don't know which pictures are from this launch and which are not.
For example, this one shows the launch of Glonass-M #59 from pad 43/3. grrr

https://twitter.com/roscosmos/status/1489940089631395841/photo/2

https://www.orbita.zenite.nu/russia-lanca-novo-satelite-para-a-rede-glonass/

[LeeMer]

Images of today's launch:

Images are not from today flight, but from 2021/12/08 launch of Soyuz 2.1a with Soyuz MS-20 and 2019/05/27 launch of Soyuz-2.1b with Cosmos 2534.

[Liss]

The spacecraft has been catalogued as 51511 = 2022-011A. Orbit from the first TLE is as follows:
67.08° 1987x1995 km 126.99 min.

[B. Hendrickx]

Footage of the launch on Zvezda TV is here:
https://tvzvezda.ru/news/202225185-prVSK.html

And this footage is on YouTube:

[jcm]

This marine space closure notice seems to be related.


[NAVAREA Navigational Warnings]
NORTH PACIFIC
NO.22-0045 Date:2022/01/31 12 UTC
NORTH PACIFIC, WESTERN PART.
HAZARDOUS OPERATION. SPACE DEBRIS.
030630Z TO 030830Z FEB. ALTERNATE 0630Z
TO 0830Z DAILY 04 AND 05 FEB. AREA
BOUNDED BY 26-00-00N 148-22-00E
26-13-00N 148-57-00E
20-14-00N 151-33-00E
20-02-00N 150-59-00E
20-14-00N 150-33-00E.
CANCEL 0039/22.
CANCEL THIS MSG 050930Z FEB.

This is consistent with the Soyuz third stage disposal location.
Does anyone have a NOTAM for the Fregat deorbit location?

[Satori]

Images of today's launch:

Second image is from Soyuz MS-20 launch in last December.

[Vahe231991]

Is it possible that the Neitron-1 launch was delayed a few times because of the COVID-19 situation?

[russianhalo117]

Is it possible that the Neitron-1 launch was delayed a few times because of the COVID-19 situation.

Anything is possible however it is not the primary reason as to why the payload made a couple of trips to and from the cosmodrome.

[B. Hendrickx]

Is it possible that the Neitron-1 launch was delayed a few times because of the COVID-19 situation.

Anything is possible however it is not the primary reason as to why the payload made a couple of trips to and from the cosmodrome.

Where is the evidence that it made several trips to Plesetsk?

One can think of several possible reasons for the long delays:
- technical issues (while it likely uses the Kondor platform, it seems to have a totally new payload)
- Western sanctions that have hampered the delivery of electronic components for Russian satellites
- the fact that it is an experimental system and may well have taken a backseat to more urgent, serially produced satellites for the Ministry of Defense
- possibly, the need to co-ordinate the launch of two satellites (Neitron and Tekhnolog), which may have to be launched with a relatively short interval if they are somehow supposed to work together in space  (but that's still speculative)

COVID probably played a minor, if any role in all this.

 

[russianhalo117]

Is it possible that the Neitron-1 launch was delayed a few times because of the COVID-19 situation.

Anything is possible however it is not the primary reason as to why the payload made a couple of trips to and from the cosmodrome.

Where is the evidence that it made several trips to Plesetsk?

One can think of several possible reasons for the long delays:
- technical issues (while it likely uses the Kondor platform, it seems to have a totally new payload)
- Western sanctions that have hampered the delivery of electronic components for Russian satellites
- the fact that it is an experimental system and may well have taken a backseat to more urgent, serially produced satellites for the Ministry of Defense
- possibly, the need to co-ordinate the launch of two satellites (Neitron and Tekhnolog), which may have to be launched with a relatively short interval if they are somehow supposed to work together in space  (but that's still speculative)

COVID probably played a minor, if any role in all this.

 

The reference on RSW regarding the flight copy and its earlier launch cancellation was removed but can be found to some degree in this earlier post of yours.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46672.msg2191321#msg2191321

[Rondaz]

#Video : launch

and flight of the Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle from the Plesetsk cosmodrome on February 5

https://twitter.com/roscosmos/status/1490637931849162752

[B. Hendrickx]

Kosmos-2553/Neitron has now been in orbit for more than 1.5 years. All that the Russian Ministry of Defense said about its purpose after launch was that it would study the effects of radiation and charged particles on newly developed on-board systems.  It is known from open sources that Neitron is a product of NPO Mashinostroyeniya, but virtually all of the information available about the project deals with ground-based and on-board support systems, making it impossible to determine its purpose with certainty. It does indicate that the satellite uses a platform similar to that of NPO Mashinostroyeniya’s Kondor radar satellites. Therefore, the most plausible guess has been that it has a radar payload, although the Kondor bus is also compatible with other payloads, including optical cameras.

In the absence of further information, the only way of learning more about Neitron’s mission is by looking at its orbital behavior. Since its launch in February 2022, the satellite has been carefully kept in a nearly circular 2,000 km orbit with an inclination of 67.1°.  A telltale sign of its purpose is the fact that it repeats its ground track every four days, which is typical of a remote sensing satellite. One way of spotting this repeat cycle is by looking at the satellite’s daily passes over any given area on Earth. Assuming that Ukraine may be an important target of observation for the satellite, I’ve included a table from the Heavens Above website showing its passes over Kyiv between September 6 and 13. As can be seen, a cycle that begins on September 6 with passes at maximum elevations of 21°, 72°, 50° etc. is repeated beginning on September 10. Each cycle begins with the satellite passing over exactly the same area about 40 minutes earlier.

Repeat ground track orbits are used by both optical and radar observation satellites. Usually, these are in relatively low Sun-synchronous orbits with high inclinations. Kosmos-2553, on the other hand, is in a much higher orbit with a much lower inclination. The high orbit makes it fairly unlikely that it is used for optical imaging. The Kondor-based optical imaging satellite proposed by NPO Mashinostroyeniya many years ago was supposed to orbit at an altitude of 500 km.

It would appear the relatively high orbit was chosen to reduce the length of the repeat cycle. This would be ideal for interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) imaging. This is a method that uses multiple SAR images of the same area to generate 3D maps of surface deformation or digital elevation. It requires a satellite to pass over exactly the same region at different times and obtain images from slightly different viewing angles.  There is some literature on the use of higher orbits for InSAR. Benefits include the shorter ground track repeat times and the wider field of view, and drawbacks are the larger size of the aperture, higher power requirements and the more challenging radiation environment.

InSAR is valuable for any project that requires accurate knowledge of the shape and height of the land. Scientific and civilian applications include earthquake research, volcano monitoring, civil engineering and land use planning. Military applications have been less well documented in literature, but include logistical planning, trafficability analysis, damage assessment, battlefield management and improved missile and weapons guidance systems. It’s worth noting that America’s Topaz military radar satellites are also in relatively high orbits (around 1000 km) and have an orbit repeat cycle of just two days.

There are indications that a variety of inclinations was considered for Neitron since its approval in 2011. A 2012 study that was most likely related to Neitron gave a range of 65° to 90° (see the Neitron program thread). If Neitron is a Kondor-based satellite (as the evidence suggests), it should be in the 1-ton range, giving the Soyuz-2-1a/Fregat launch vehicle enough flexibility to place it into a variety of orbits.  Therefore, it is possible that a final decision on the inclination was made relatively late.  Since Kosmos-2553 was launched just two weeks before the beginning of the war in Ukraine, it is tempting to believe that its inclination was selected to optimize coverage of Ukrainian territory. As can be seen in the table, the 67° inclination orbit is well suited for coverage of Ukrainian territory, offering up to seven consecutive passes per day (although not all of them provide good viewing angles).

Still, this could be purely coincidental. By all accounts, Russia expected its “special military operation” to be finished within a matter of weeks or even days, in which case no special satellite coverage would have been required. But now that the “SMO” has turned into a long, grinding war, the inclination selected for Neitron may still prove to come in handy for the Russians. Additional radar coverage of the war zone is most likely being provided by Kondor-FKA, which is in roughly circular 500 km orbit with an inclination of 97.4°. Although this officially is a civilian Roscosmos satellite, Russian officials said after its launch last May that it will also be used to assist in the war effort. Its passes over Ukraine complement those of Kosmos-2553. It currently has two morning and two evening passes over Ukraine, which only partially overlap with those of Kosmos-2553. This extends the daily radar coverage of Ukraine to a period of about 16 hours.

If Kosmos-2553 is indeed used for radar interferometry, that could also explain the involvement in the project of NPK SPP, which signed a contract with NPO Mashinostroyeniya for Neitron in 2014 for what was called “ballistic and navigation support”. As can be learned from procurement documents, this work was assigned to a branch of NPK SPP in Korolyov outside Moscow named PNBO (“Precision Navigation and Ballistic Support”), which is also closely involved in Glonass. Its website is here:
https://npk-spp.ru/branches/filial-pnbo-ao-npk-spp/
In order for radar interferometry to work, the satellite has to be maintained in a very precise orbit to ensure the accurate repetition of the ground track, most likely with the help of Glonass receivers. Moreover, there are strong signs that Kosmos-2553 (14F01-1) is to be joined by a sister satellite (14F01-2) whose orbit will have to be carefully co-ordinated with that of the first satellite. 

[gosnold]

Following new statements by US official Pavel Odvig thinks Cosmos 2553 is related to the Russian space nuke project, or at least the US thinks it is:

https://twitter.com/russianforces/status/1786523272072331561?

However I can't find why this orbit with a repeating ground track, a circular orbit and intermediate inclination would be useful for that in any way. For instance if you want to study the Van Allen belts, you'd probably be better of with a satellite in 90° elliptical orbit to make measurements at various altitudes and at all latitudes?