Kosmos 2519/2521/2523 - Soyuz-2.1v/Volga - Plesetsk - June 23, 2017

[apachhi]

February 20 the next maneuver in cosmos 2521

[Phillip Clark]

Orbits for the three satellites: pre- and post- manoeuvre orbits for Cosmos 2521.

Satellite             TLE Epoch             Incl          Period    Perigee/Apogee  AoP
Cosmos 2519     2018 Feb 22.569    97.89       97.772     644       660    178

Cosmos 2521     2018 Feb 20.395    97.90       97.536     617       665    211
                        2018 Feb 20.803    97.89       97.778     646       659    182

Cosmos 2523    2018 Feb 22.527    97.87       96.875     554       664    199

So, no rendezvous between Cosmos 2519 and Cosmos 2523 is planned.

[gwiz]

So, no rendezvous between Cosmos 2519 and Cosmos 2523 is planned.

More like Kosmos 2521 approaching Kosmos 2519 again.

[B. Hendrickx]

According to my informations, Cosmos 2519 is 14Ф150 №8120.

https://www.kosmonavtika.com/lancements/2017/23062017/23062017.html

No. 8120 does not seem to be 14F150 no. 2.
Rather no. 1.

Another explanation of the early references to №2, is that №1 was intended to fly on a different rocket?

There does appear to be a 14Ф150 №2:-

«Проведение и обеспечение сертификационных испытаний ЭКБ ИП предназначенной для комплектования аппаратуры изделия СГК-5 ИНАЯ.402113.081 изделия 14Ф150 Н2», шифр: «СГК-5-КП»

http://www.zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?regNumber=31705867410

Upon closer analysis, this document posted here by Stan Black several weeks ago provides strong evidence that Kosmos-2519 performs some kind of remote sensing mission. It is a contract between two subcontractors involved in 14F150 (believed to be the GRАU designator for Kosmos-2519). It was signed on 8 December 2017 and deals with an SGK-5 control moment gyro that is being manufactured for what appears to be the second satellite in the series (14F150 N2). The SGK-5 devices are manufactured by the Scientific Research Institute of Control Instruments (NII Komandnykh Priborov) in St.-Petersburg, which over the years has specialized in control moment gyros for remote sensing satellites (the most recent ones being Resurs-DK, Resurs-P and Obzor-R). Control moment gyros make it possible to accurately point satellites to targets on Earth without using propellant.

The SGK-5 for "product 14F50" was also the subject of this contract signed between NII Komandnykh Priborov and the Russian Institute of Radio Navigation and Time (AO RIRV) on 1 September 2014.

http://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/notice-info/common-info.html?noticeInfoId=1655557&purchaseMethodType=IS

The two contracts are said to be based on an earlier contract signed between NPO Lavochkin and NII Komandnykh Priborov on 10 January 2013 and another, unspecified contract on 1 December 2011. This would suggest the 14F50 project has been underway for at least six/seven years.

Three articles published by representatives of NII Komandnykh Priborov provide further evidence that the SGK-5 control moment gyros were specifically developed for an unspecified small remote sensing satellite built by NPO Lavochkin. The SGK-5 weighs 4.5 kg and has an angular momentum of 5 Nms. The year of development is given as 2014.

http://www.vniiem.ru/ru/uploads/files/conferences/140523/sbornik_tezisov_2014.pdf
(p. 44-47)

http://www.vniiem.ru/ru/uploads/files/conferences/160519/sbornik_tezisov_2016.pdf
(p. 71-73)

https://dspace.comsep.ru/bitstream/handle/comsep/83/2015_01_08.pdf?sequence=1

[weedenbc]

Wasn't there a press release from the Russians a while ago describing at least one of these satellites for space-to-space remote sensing (ie, SSA or inspections)?

[B. Hendrickx]

Wasn't there a press release from the Russians a while ago describing at least one of these satellites for space-to-space remote sensing (ie, SSA or inspections)?

The two subsatellites released from Cosmos-2519 (Cosmos-2521 and 2523) have been described as being on satellite inspection missions, but the main satellite itself may well be on a remote sensing mission. This would be in line with the objectives of the mission given in a Ministry of Defense press release shortly after the launch:

"The satellite is a space platform on which several types of payloads can be installed. The payload [for this mission] is equipment for remote sensing of the Earth and equipment to photograph objects in space".

[Phillip Clark]

Another small orbital tweak by Cosmos 2521:

Feb 26.171    97.89 deg       97.779 min     645 km       660 km    163 deg
Feb 27.472    97.89             97.716            642            657         180

And Cosmos 2519:

Feb 27.461    97.89             97.772            644            660         163
Feb 27.801    97.89             97.772            644            660         162

It looks as if we might be seeing some further close encounters between these two satellites.

[Phillip Clark]

While we have had missions described for Cosmos 2519 and Cosmos 2521, there is no obvious explanation for Cosmos 2523.

According to the United Nations registration for this satellite, it separated from Cosmos 2521 on October 30 last year: presumably that information was supplied by the Russians.   Apart from the manoeuvre which dropped perigee by ~100 km immediately after this separation, the satellite has performed no manoeuvres.   I did think that maybe it was the Cosmos 2521 propulsion unit, but of course that idea is wrong since Cosmos 2521 has been manoeuvring recently.

So ........ does anyone have any idea what Cosmos 2523 might be doing?

[Alter Sachse]

I thought he was a target  for Cosmos 2521.
But that seems to be wrong.

[Phillip Clark]

I thought he was a target  for Cosmos 2521.
But that seems to be wrong.

Cosmos 2521 has only performed rendezvous manoeuvres with Cosmos 2519.

[Alter Sachse]

I did think that maybe it was the Cosmos 2521 propulsion unit, but of course that idea is wrong since Cosmos 2521 has been manoeuvring recently.

I think, a propulsion unit would certainly not have received a cosmos number.

[B. Hendrickx]

While we have had missions described for Cosmos 2519 and Cosmos 2521, there is no obvious explanation for Cosmos 2523.

According to the United Nations registration for this satellite, it separated from Cosmos 2521 on October 30 last year: presumably that information was supplied by the Russians.   Apart from the manoeuvre which dropped perigee by ~100 km immediately after this separation, the satellite has performed no manoeuvres.   I did think that maybe it was the Cosmos 2521 propulsion unit, but of course that idea is wrong since Cosmos 2521 has been manoeuvring recently.

So ........ does anyone have any idea what Cosmos 2523 might be doing?

Just a reminder that the Russian Ministry of Defense did release an official statement on the separation of the subsatellite on October 30. See reply 153 in this thread.

Confusing statement from the Ministry of Defense on the Kosmos-2519 mission today (as quoted by TASS) :

http://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/4686774

(my quick translation)

"According to [the Ministry of Defense] a satellite-platform was launched from Plesetsk on 23 June 2017 in the interests of the Ministry of Defense to conduct a scientific experiment to study a Russian satellite with the help of a small satellite launched from this platform.

«Today, in the next step of the experiment, a satellite inspector was detached from the small satellite. The inspector is capable of diagnosing the technical condition of a/the (?) Russian satellite from the closest possible distance using special equipment.  The obtained information will be sent to Earth for detailed analysis and to decide whether the observed satellite will be restored to working order», the Ministry of Defense said."

Which I suppose should be interpreted as follows:

"satellite-platform" = Kosmos-2519
"small satellite launched from the platform" = Kosmos-2521
"satellite inspector" = Kosmos-2523

So officially both Kosmos-2521 and 2523 are on missions to observe other Russian satellites and Kosmos-2523 more specifically has been tasked with finding out if some malfunctioning Russian satellite can be restored to working order. The only question is what satellite...

I think it was this press release that prompted someone on the NK forum to compare Kosmos-2519 to a "matryoshka", the famous Russian nestlng dolls...

[Phillip Clark]

Thank you for the reminder and info Bart!

Cosmos 2523 hasn't done that much in terms of visiting satellites (other than as part of Cosmos 2521) while Cosmos 2521 has done the various close encounters with Cosmos 2519, so it would seem that Cosmos 2521 is the actual inspector.   I think that Cosmos 2523 might be "something else", whatever that might be.

Unless - radical thought! - Cosmos 2523 is the piece that remained in the near circular orbit and Cosmos 2521 dropped its perigee, and we have the two satellites mixed up?

I wonder if there's another Cosmos ready to pop into existence and shock us all?!!!

[Alter Sachse]

Or Cosmos 2523 is an inspector, but he is "sleeping" or is broken ?

[Phillip Clark]

Or Cosmos 2523 is an inspector, but he is "sleeping" or is broken ?

Possibly.

In my last posting I should have noted that the UN registration identifies Cosmos 2523 as being object E from the launch.

[B. Hendrickx]

In the days and weeks following the launch of Kosmos-2519 there was speculation that the satellite might have the name Nivelir ("level" in the meaning "leveling instrument") and be used for geodetic research (I'm talking here only about the "parent satellite", not the subsatellites later released by Kosmos-2519). See for instance:

https://spaceflight101.com/tag/nivelir/
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/napryazhenie.html

The reason for that was that a procurement plan of RKTs Progress (Samara) for 2013 linked the designator 14F150 to something called Nivelir-ZU and a paper published in 2013 identified Nivelir-P as the name of a research program for a new generation of geodetic satellites.  However, some closer analysis shows that Nivelir-ZU and Nivelir-P are almost certainly unrelated and that while Kosmos-2519 may be called Nivelir, it is very unlikely to be on a geodetic mission.

First of all, speculation that Kosmos-2519 is 14F150 was confirmed by what appears to be inside information obtained by Nicolas Pillet (see reply 155 in this thread). We also know from procurement documents that 14F150 is a product of NPO Lavochkin and that the company was likely awarded the contract for the project before 2012.

The 2013 paper deals with plans for a new-generation geodetic satellite system called GEO-IK-3, a successor to the GEO-IK-2 (14F31) satellites of ISS Reshetnyov (the leading authors of the article are representatives of ISS Reshetnyov).

https://www.glonass-iac.ru/aboutIAC/Report%20by%20Kosenko%20Zvonar_3.pdf

The idea was for GEO-IK-3 to become a multitier system consisting of :
-   one satellite (similar to ESA's GOCE, carrying a gradiometer) in a 250-300 km Sun-synchronous orbit and/or two satellites (similar to ESA's GRACE) in 500 km orbits.
-   one or two satellites in a 1000 km Sun-synchronous orbit
-   the Blits-M laser reflector satellite in a 3000 km orbit
-   Glonass, GPS, Galileo navigation satellites

GEO-IK-3 was to become either a dedicated military project, an all-Russian dual-use civilian/military project or a project involving international cooperation.  At the time of writing (2013), preliminary studies were underway at TsNIIMash under a research program ("NIR") called "Razvitiye" (Development). The Ministry of Defense's 4 TsNII research institute proposed another NIR called Nivelir-P to be conducted in 2014-2015. All satellites were to go through the "draft plan" phase (preliminary design phase) in 2016. The satellites in 1000 km orbits were expected to fly first (in early 2019), followed by the GOCE type satellite in late 2019 and the GRACE type satellites in 2020.

ISS Reshetnyov chief Nikolai Testoyedov provided an update on GEO-IK-3 in June 2016, saying the NIR phase would last from 2015 to 2019 and the development (OKR) phase from 2020 to 2025, suggesting no launch will take place before that time.

http://vestnik-glonass.ru/news/tech/idet-razrabotka-novoy-kosmicheskoy-geodezicheskoy-sistemy/

Meanwhile,  the GEO-IK-2 project is not finished yet, with at least one more launch expected.

Putting it all together, there is very good reason to believe that Nivelir-P is unrelated to 14F150/Kosmos-2519 :

- this was a proposed NIR for 2014-2015. The NIR phase precedes the stage where a tender is launched and a prime contractor and subcontractors are selected. Back in 2013 the 14F150 contract had already been awarded to Lavochkin.
- the 2013 paper sums up several companies expected to become involved in GEO-IK-3, the leading one being ISS Reshetnyov. NPO Lavochkin is not mentioned as a potential participant. 
- GEO-IK-3 is still in the early research phase at this time and the GEO-IK-2 program will see at least one other launch. It is hard to believe there is yet another, separate geodetic satellite project assigned to another manufacturer.

What then about Nivelir-ZU? This is mentioned in procurement plans of RKTs Progress (Samara) for 2013 and 2014 (so it was part of an approved satellite project, not some preliminary research program like Nivelir-P). "ZU" may stand for a "memory unit" (zapominayushchee ustroistvo), so Nivelir-ZU can be interpreted as a memory unit to be delivered as part of the Nivelir project. The 2013 document links Nivelir-ZU to 14F150.   

According to the documents, RKTs Progress was to supply Russian-built and foreign-built electronic components for the ZU to its affiliate NPP OPEKS in Zelenograd. This does not necessarily mean that the components were intended for a satellite built by RKTs Progress. For instance, one of the documents says RKTs Progress was to supply similar equipment to NPP OPEKS for 14F155, which is almost certainly NPO Lavochkin's Araks-R radar reconnaissance satellite. In other words, the components go from RKTs Progress to NPP OPEKS and finally to the satellite manufacturer.

There is also evidence for a link between Nivelir and NPO Lavochkin. In  May 2017 the Russian Institute for Radio Navigation and Time sent a congratulatory message to NPO Lavochkin on the occasion of the company's 80th anniversary, saying it was "productively co-operating with Lavochkin in the development of an autonomous navigation system for satellites such as Arktika-M, Rezonans, Nivelir and others".
https://glavportal.com/materials/80-let-npo-imeni-s-lavochkina/

So Nivelir is indeed the name of a Lavochkin satellite and with one of the procurement documents having linked Nivelir to 14F150, that satellite would appear to be Kosmos-2519. However, while the name "Nivelir" would be quite appropriate for a geodetic satellite, there is nothing to suggest that the satellite is indeed intended for geodetic research. Let's also not forget that the Russians like to recycle names for totally unrelated projects (the names Zvezda and Zarya come to mind).

To make matters even more complicated, the name Nivelir also shows up in several documents related to ISS Reshetnyov in 2014-2016.
http://zakupki.gov.ru/223/purchase/public/purchase/info/common-info.html?noticeId=1549683
https://www.e-disclosure.ru/portal/FileLoad.ashx?Fileid=1258675
http://www.npopmrazvitie.ru/images/stories/got-2016.pdf

Here it has the extension Nivelir-MNK-OSZ or Nivelir-MNK-OSZ-PPK-PPA. It can be inferred from the documents that OSZ stands for "unified ground station" and PPK and PPA for "reception and transmission equipment" and that part of the project was to develop "fully rotatable antennas". It is described as being part of ISS Reshetnyov's research and development (NIOKR) programs until 2025, so there may be a link with Nivelir-P (perhaps ground stations for future geodetic satellites under the GEO-IK-3 project). However, it could just as well be totally unrelated.

Finally, another name that has been associated with Kosmos-2519 is Napryazhenie ("Voltage" or "Tension"), but this is not linked to 14F150 in any of the available procurement documentation. The only reason it has been linked to Kosmos-2519 is that appears in two of the same RKTs Progress procurement documents mentioned above, but it is listed as a separate budget item and there's nothing to suggest a link between Nivelir and Napryazheniye.

The two projects also appear together in the annual report of NPP Geofizika-Kosmos for 2013 (the company produces optical sensors for satellite orientation and navigation systems).

http://www.geofizika-cosmos.ru/assets/files/otchyotnost/godovoj-otchet-2013.pdf

However, this doesn't suggest a direct relation between the two either. The report simply talks about the possible use of Geofizika's instruments "on the satellites Spektr-RG, Nivelir-L, Napryazheniye-L, Rezonans and 14F01" (14F01 being a military satellite produced by NPO Mashinostroyeniye). It's not clear what the extension "L" stands for after the names Nivelir and Napryazheniye. At any rate, for now Napryazheniye remains a complete mystery.

[Phillip Clark]

Cosmos 2521 appears to be slowly drifting away from Cosmos 2519 (which hasn't manoeuvred for three months).   Latest orbital data are:

Cosmos 2519           Mar 14.883    97.89 deg       97.771 min     643 km      661 km    117 deg

Cosmos 2521           Mar 14.884    97.89             97.780            643           662         118

Cosmos 2523           Mar 14.857    97.86             96.875            553           665         133

My BIS Spaceflight paper about the mission has been delayed for a month and it will now be coming out at the end of next month.   I have already arranged with the editor not to change the article significantly but send in a "Letter to the Editor" to properly detail this year's events.

[Phillip Clark]

Another small orbital tweak by Cosmos 2521: pre and post manoeuvre orbits .......

Mar 16.446    97.89 deg       97.780 min     643 km      662 km    114 deg
Mar 16.786    97.89             97.754            641           662          111

[Phillip Clark]

Another day, another small orbital tweak by Cosmos 2521:

Mar 19.435    97.89 deg       97.753 min     640 km       662 km    102 deg
Mar 20.454    97.89             97.772           642             662          107

[Alter Sachse]

Another day, another small orbital tweak by Cosmos 2521:

Mar 19.435    97.89 deg       97.753 min     640 km       662 km    102 deg
Mar 20.454    97.89             97.772           642             662          107

up and down