US: Russia Has Launched an Anti-Satellite Weapon
The mysterious object appears to be shadowing a US spy satellite.
By Ryan Whitwam May 22, 2024
The US government has accused Russia of launching a new anti-satellite weapon. The object, which Russia has refused to positively identify, appears to be operating in space near an important US satellite. Independent sky watchers can confirm Russia's new satellite is suspiciously close to the US asset, but no one outside of Russia's Defense Ministry can say what exactly it's doing up there.
The mysterious satellite launched into low Earth orbit on May 16. At a recent Pentagon briefing, Major General Patrick Ryder was asked about the Russian spacecraft by a US ambassador. Ryder confirmed the government was monitoring the object and believes it to be an anti-satellite weapon.
Russian Inspector Satellite Gets Up Close and Personal with a Spacecraft in Orbit by Sharmila Kuthunur
June 3, 2024
Introduction:
(Space.com) 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.
The news of this close approach comes shortly after U.S. intelligence officials and the Pentagon accused Russia of attempting to militarize space by deploying a different military inspector satellite into the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite.
The Russian satellite, Cosmos 2576, "is likely a counterspace weapon presumably capable of attacking other satellites in low Earth orbit," U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood said on May 20 during a U.N. Security Council meeting. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has denied the Pentagon's claims as fake news.
