Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat – Kosmos-2588 (Nivelir №5) [14F150] – Plesetsk LC43/4 – 23 May 2025 (08:36 UTC)

[B. Hendrickx]

https://vk.com/wall-225776269_655
A rocket stage impact warning has been issued for a Soyuz-2 launch from Plesetsk on May 23 between 10.00 and 12.00 Moscow time (7.00-9.00 UTC). There are back-up opportunities from May 24 until May 28 (same window).

The impact zone is in the Yamal region and has earlier been used for launches into 67° inclination orbits. The most obvious payload is another Lotos-S (14F145) electronic intelligence satellite. Four 14F145 satellites (serial numbers 806-809) ordered in 2017 have all been placed into orbit. A new batch was ordered by the Ministry of Defense in the summer of 2022, as was announced at the time during the Army-2022 exhibition:

https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/15484521

If this is the first satellite from this batch, it would have been manufactured in record time.

The only two other satellites launched into 67° orbits in recent years were Kosmos-2550 (Pion/14F139 N°901) and Kosmos-2553 (Neitron/14F01-1). According to a press report in November 2022, no final decision had yet been made to go ahead with he construction of a second Pion satellite, which virtually rules out that this is the payload for the upcoming launch. As for Neitron, there are strong indications that a second satellite (14F01-2) was built, but it’s not clear if it is still planned to be launched. Neitron requires a Fregat upper stage and so far there are no NOTAMs for third stage impact or the deorbiting of the Fregat. Also, the first Neitron had just two back-up launch dates, whereas there are multiple back-up opportunities for this launch. This was also the case for recent Lotos-S launches. 

[Galactic Penguin SST]

So this reentry zone east of New Zealand is really related to a classified Russian launch, as I suspected earlier:

B3530/25 NOTAMN
Q) NZZO/QRDCA/IV/BO /W /000/999/4417S16342W999
A) NZZO B) 2505230800 C) 2505231000
E) TEMPO DANGER AREA NZD096 (EAST AUCKLAND OCEANIC FIR) IS
PRESCRIBED AS FLW:
ALL THAT AIRSPACE BOUNDED BY A LINE JOINING:
30 21 36 S 173 45 36 W
55 24 36 S 151 46 48 W
58 12 00 S 158 10 12 W
31 58 48 S 178 04 48 W
30 21 36 S 173 45 36 W
ACTIVITY: MISSILE LAUNCH AND DEBRIS RETURN
USER AGENCY: FOREIGN AEROSPACE FORCE
PRESCRIBED PURSUANT TO CIVIL AVIATION RULE PART 71 UNDER A DELEGATED
AUTHORITY ISSUED BY THE DIRECTOR OF CIVIL AVIATION
F) SFC G) UNL

[B. Hendrickx]

So this reentry zone east of New Zealand is really related to a classified Russian launch, as I suspected earlier:

Thanks. This must be for the third stage, so it looks like there's a Fregat upper stage after all. The only other Soyuz-2/Fregat launch into a 67° orbit was Kosmos-2553/Neitron in February 2022, but the third stage impact zone for that launch was much farther to the north:

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.

So this could be something completely new.

[AStick]

This might be an upper stage.  Timing fits right.

E1388/25 - TEMPO DANGER AREA ACT
DUE SPACE DEBRIS FALLING INTO OCEAN WI AREA BOUNDED BY:
595700S 1494200E
452400S 1381800E
443600S 1392400E
590000S 1510000E
595700S 1494200E
CTC OFFICE OF AIRSPACE REGULATION TEL: 02 6217 1177 OPTION 7. SFC - UNL, DAILY
1100-1300, 23 MAY 11:00 2025 UNTIL 28 MAY 13:00 2025. CREATED: 15 MAY 00:59 2025

[B. Hendrickx]

Here's another NOTAM for the deorbiting of the Fregat upper stage:

FM JRCC AUSTRALIA 161227Z MAY 25
NAVAREA X 041/25
CHART AUS 4074 - CAPE DARNLEY TO TASMANIA
1. SPACE DEBRIS DANGER AREA 40NM EITHER SIDE OF CENTRE LINE:
45-00.00S 138-51.00E
59-26.50S 150-23.50E
2. HAZARD PERIOD DAILY 1200 UTC TO 1300 UTC FROM 23 MAY TO 28 MAY 2025.
NNNN     

         

The one in the previous post is for aviators, this one is for mariners. The window is somewhat shorter.

Looks like something is going into an unusual, relatively high 67° inclination orbit. Reminiscent of Kosmos-2553/Neitron, but the different impact zone of the third stage (way more south) makes me think the altitude will be different. In any case, we may have to brace ourselves for a flurry of new reports about alleged Russian space-based nuclear weapons...

[zubenelgenubi]

Bart has also alerted SeeSat-l.
https://satobs.org/seesat/May-2025/0097.html

I'm interested: What regions will have the first, best launch vehicle and/or satellite observing opportunities?

[B. Hendrickx]

A contributor to the Seesat forum has done some analysis of the drop zones and come to the conclusion that the satellite will probably end up in a 2300x2300 km orbit with an inclination of 74°. It will initially be placed into a 67° inclination parking orbit, after which the Fregat upper stage will perform a major burn to change the inclination.

https://www.satobs.org/seesat/May-2025/0099.html

After consulting with Jonathan McDowell about the upcoming Soyuz 2.1a launch from Plesetsk on May 23rd I am very stumped.

I have tried to fit different orbits but nothing fit well enough other than a final orbit of 2300km x 2300km x ~74.0.

I made the assumption it will launch into a standard ~67.0 deg orbit to avoid overflying China, then an inclination change over the equator to align with a upperstage de-orbit zone south of Australia.

CHART AUS 4074 - CAPE DARNLEY TO TASMANIA 1. SPACE DEBRIS DANGER AREA 40NM EITHER SIDE OF CENTRE LINE: 45-00.00S 138-51.00E 59-26.50S 150-23.50E 2. HAZARD PERIOD DAILY 1200 UTC TO 1300 UTC FROM 23 MAY TO 28 MAY 2025.

FREGAT 2.1A PO
1 70090U 25999A   25143.29792072  .00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0  9904
2 70090  67.0504 332.1330 1408592 090.8997 008.1573 12.98680000    04
FREGAT 2.1A INC CHANGE
1 70091U 25999A   25143.33472255  .00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0  9908
2 70091  73.9926 332.0740 1399032 090.8069 180.0952 12.97767200    09
FREGAT 2.1A Circ Burn
1 70092U 25999A   25143.33472255  .00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0  9909
2 70092  73.9926 332.0740 0011043 090.8069 180.0952 10.68104800    09
FREGAT 2.1A De-orbit
1 70093U 25999A   25143.38680961  .00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0  9900
2 70093  73.9877 332.0213 1943969 291.2000 180.0000 13.93232000    03

This may be a shot in the dark, relatively hard to replicate. It has to be somewhat close though.

If this is close to being accurate, this is a completely new orbital shell and altitude for Russian military satellites.

The reason for the 67° inclination parking orbit can’t be the need to avoid overflying China. If the rocket directly inserted the payload into a 74° inclination orbit, it would not fly over China at all. The most likely reason is that the Russians want to avoid creating new impact zones for the first stage and core stage on Russian territory, which is a lengthy procedure. This can be done by using a standard launch profile for a 67° inclination orbit (also used by Lotos-S, Pion and Neitron) and subsequently changing the inclination using the Fregat stage.

Assuming the payload is not the second Neitron, another good candidate is Araks-R, a radar reconnaissance satellite developed by NPO Lavochkin and also known by its military index 14F155. The project thread is here:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=45025.0

As explained there, an initial contract for the project was signed in December 2012 and the initial plan was to outfit the satellites with a radar supplied by EADS Astrium. That deal fell through after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, after which the development of the radar was entrusted to a Russian company (NPP Pulsar) and NPO Lavochkin was awarded a new contract for the project by the Ministry of Defense in September 2016.

Reporting on the renewed contract in October 2016, the Izvestiya newspaper wrote that the satellites were to be built on the basis of NPO Lavochkin’s Navigator platform and were expected to be placed into 2000 km orbits. 

https://iz.ru/news/637969
if the link doesn’t work, here’s another one:
https://www.technosphera.ru/news/3953

The plan was to initially launch two satellites, followed later by another three. At the time, the launch of the first one was expected in 2019, so it is now long overdue. Araks-R was again in the news in December 2023, when Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu referred to it at a meeting of high-ranking military officials:

https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/19431655
(includes video)

Shoigu didn’t mention the satellite by name and talked only about an NPO Lavochkin satellite capable of producing high-resolution images of the Earth for Russia’s armed forces in any type of weather or lighting conditions. In the video, Shoigu can be heard saying that some “issues” had arisen during the project and that “ways of resolving them” would be discussed during the meeting, which was attended by officials of NPO Lavochkin. One can imagine that these issues have been cleared by now and that after many years of delays the first Araks-R is finally ready for launch.

[B. Hendrickx]

A contributor to the Seesat forum has done some analysis of the drop zones and come to the conclusion that the satellite will probably end up in a 2300x2300 km orbit with an inclination of 74°. It will initially be placed into a 67° inclination parking orbit, after which the Fregat upper stage will perform a major burn to change the inclination.

According to another analysis (by Marco Langbroek), the drop zones are consistent with a final 67° inclination orbit.

https://www.satobs.org/seesat/May-2025/0103.html

I offer these two possible Kosmos 2553-like search orbits:

KOSMOS        for launch on 23 May 2025 07:00:00 UTC   1995 x 2000 km
1 70000U 25999A   25143.29166667  .00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0    02
2 70000 067.0000 331.5727 0002985 098.3431 308.5611 11.32598711    04

KOSMOS       for launch on 23 May 2025 07:00:00 UTC    2490 x 2500 km
1 70001U 25999A   25143.29166667  .00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0    03
2 70001 067.0000 331.6036 0005635 098.3311 312.8260 10.38692631    00

The ~2500 km orbit is a good fit to the Fregat deorbit area south of Australia  in terms of location; but not for the time of that window (it would arrive there 1.5 hours "too early"). There can always be clerical errors however.

The core stage deorbit area east of New Zealand is somewhat offset to the east: I think there is a deliberate avoidance manoeuver after separation of the Fregat, in order to avoid it falling on New Zealand (it would do so if continuing on its original path).

He meant to say "the third stage drop zone east of New Zealand". The avoidance maneuver would have to be made by the third stage itself.

So the final orbit may be closer to that of Kosmos-2553/Neitron than assumed here earlier. That still leaves two options: Neitron N°2 or Araks-R N°1 (unless the satellite belongs to a totally unknown project).

[B. Hendrickx]

https://tass.ru/kosmos/24027395

TASS confirms the launch of a Soyuz-2.1b rocket with a satellite for the Ministry of Defense. No launch time or any further details given. 

[B. Hendrickx]

https://tass.ru/kosmos/24030349

The Ministry of Defense reports that the satellite has been successfully placed into the intended orbit. Launch time was 11.36 Moscow time (8.36 UTC).

Based on NOTAMs, the Fregat should be deorbited sometime between 12.00 and 13.00 UTC.

Here's some video of the launch shot by a local resident. Separation of the first-stage strap-on boosters is visible.

https://vkvideo.ru/video227901633_456240096?ref_domain=yastatic.net

[Galactic Penguin SST]

RIA Novosti has a video of processing and launch, showing liftoff from LC-43/4.

https://twitter.com/Cosmic_Penguin/status/1925899045257564366

https://twitter.com/Cosmic_Penguin/status/1925904985771909507

[Alter Sachse]

https://vk.com/roscosmos?z=photo-30315369_457371846%2F1c1b0bd8c2754a9010

[Bean Kenobi]

https://vk.com/roscosmos?z=photo-30315369_457371846%2F1c1b0bd8c2754a9010

SF-type fairing.

[input~2]

ORIGINATOR    "18 SPCS"
OBJECT_ID    "2025-109A"
EPOCH    "2025-05-23T13:25:26.453280"
INCLINATION    "72.9781"
RA_OF_ASC_NODE    "11.2707"
ARG_OF_PERICENTER    "240.5421"
NORAD_CAT_ID    "64095"
SEMIMAJOR_AXIS    "6850.702"
PERIOD    "94.051"
APOAPSIS    "480.796"
PERIAPSIS    "464.339"

[Satori]

Hi Bart!

After the available information, I would love to read your analysis of the launch/mission of Cosmos 2588?

Thank you!

[B. Hendrickx]

Looks like the muscle of the Fregat was mainly needed to change the inclination (from 67° to 73°), not so much to reach a high orbit.

The orbit is somewhat reminiscent of that of the US electro-optical reconnaissance satellites USA 290 and USA 338. Unfortunately, there are no up-to-date TLEs for these satellites. These are the latest ones:

USA-290
April 16
396х423 km, 73.5°

1 43941U 19004A   25106.85696612 0.00013257  00000-0  21428-3 0    03
2 43941  73.5611 355.2849 0019637 142.2423 217.7366 15.52500380    07

USA-338
May 13
403х409 km, 73.5°

1 53883U 22117A   25133.85304755 0.00015000  00000-0  23433-3 0    08
2 53883  73.5909  33.3705 0004000 260.8117  99.1882 15.53668814    06

I don't know what their orbit planes are night now. Maybe the orbital mechanics experts can extrapolate that from these data. And there is, of course, a difference in inclination of about 0.5°. So way too early to claim this is another Nivelir (14F150).

By the way, it is not impossible that secondary payloads will be detected, as was the case after the launch of Kosmos-2576 last year.

[4353]

The orbit of Kosmos 2588 indeed is very similar to that of USA 338 (orbit of the latter based on observations by Independent Observers). The difference in RAAN is only 0.11 degrees, the difference in inclination is 0.6 degrees. Kosmos 2588 orbits just above the orbit of USA 338. They  can approach each other to <100 km in this orbital configuration.

This is the fourth time a Russian military satellite is placed co-orbital with a US military optical reconnaissance satellite in five years time. Earlier we had Kosmos 2542/2543 and USA 245; then Kosmos 2558 and USA 326; then Kosmos 2576 and USA 314. The first instance appeared to be an 'inspector satellite' mission; but for the second and third, and perhaps this new one as well, I think we should seriously consider that we are perhaps seeing the positioning of a counterspace capacity (a dormant co-orbital ASAT weapon).

[B. Hendrickx]

The orbit of Kosmos 2588 indeed is very similar to that of USA 338 (orbit of the latter based on observations by Independent Observers).

So it looks like this is indeed the fifth 14F150/Nivelir satellite (a total of five were supposed to have been built according to production plans published by their manufacturer, NPO Lavochkin).

This is what I wrote in my recent article on the Nivelir project for "The Space Review":

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4982/1

Assuming Russia wants to continue space-based observations of US reconnaissance satellites, potential targets for future Nivelir satellites are USA 290 and USA 338. These are the only big US optical reconnaissance satellites launched in the past decade or so that have not yet been shadowed by 14F150 satellites. Unlike their counterparts, which are in Sun-synchronous orbits, they fly in orbits with an inclination of 73 degrees. In 2021, Russia’s Ministry of Defense ordered a study on the environmental impact of launches of Soyuz-2.1v rockets from Plesetsk into that particular inclination, which hasn’t been used since the late 1980s. This was possibly done with a view to placing Nivelir satellites into orbits that are co-planar with USA 290 and/or USA 338.[36]

Whether that will happen is somewhat uncertain though. The launch of a Soyuz-2.1v with the Kosmos-2581/2585/2583 satellites last February was widely reported to have been the last of the launch vehicle. The rocket’s first stage is powered by refurbished NK-33 engines that were originally built for the Soviet Union’s N-1 Moon rocket back in the 1960s and 1970s and this stockpile may now be depleted. If Soyuz-2.1v has indeed been abandoned (which has not yet been confirmed by official Russian sources), there are other ways of placing the 14F150 satellites and their possible successors into orbit. The fourth satellite in the series, Kosmos-2576, flew to space aboard the more powerful Soyuz-2.1b rocket, which used its extra payload capacity to deliver several other satellites to orbit.

So it looks like plans to directly launch this 14F150 into a 73° inclination orbit with the Soyuz-2.1v were abandoned (even though an environmental study was ordered to clear new drop zones for this particular launch trajectory). Instead, it was decided to fly it on a Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat, using the standard launch trajectory for a 67° orbit so as to avoid the use of new drop zones on Russian territory. Fregat was then used to change the inclination from 67° to 73°.

This is the fourth time a Russian military satellite is placed co-orbital with a US military optical reconnaissance satellite in five years time. Earlier we had Kosmos 2542/2543 and USA 245; then Kosmos 2558 and USA 326; then Kosmos 2576 and USA 314. The first instance appeared to be an 'inspector satellite' mission; but for the second and third, and perhaps this new one as well, I think we should seriously consider that we are perhaps seeing the positioning of a counterspace capacity (a dormant co-orbital ASAT weapon).

The 14F150 satellites only pose a direct threat to the US satellites if they carry small subsatellites armed with ASAT projectiles (such as the ones deployed from Kosmos-2519 and 2542). We don't know if these are on board Kosmos-2558, 2576 and 2588. More in the Nivelir article mentioned above.

[Nicolas PILLET]

78042528 ?

[Alter Sachse]

In a video from March 2022, the Soyuz 2.1b 77042527 could be seen during assembly.
042528 could be correct.