ARLA/CLUSTER: Peça misteriosa de lixo espacial russo faz manobras

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

Mysterious piece of Russian space junk does maneuvers

What was first thought to be a piece of debris left over from the
launch of three Russian military communication satellites has turned
out to be a fourth satellite capable of maneuvers: "The three
satellites were designated Kosmos-2496, -2497, -2498.

"However, as in the previous launch on December 25, 2013, the fourth
unidentified object was detected orbiting the Earth a few kilometers
away from 'routine' Rodnik satellites. Moreover, an analysis of
orbital elements from a US radar by observers showed that the 'ghost'
spacecraft had made a maneuver between May 29 and May 31, 2014,
despite being identified as 'debris' (or Object 2014-028E) in the
official U.S. catalog at the time.

"On June 24, the mysterious spacecraft started maneuvering again,
lowering its perigee (lowest point) by four kilometers and lifting its
apogee by 3.5 kilometers. Object E then continued its relentless
maneuvers in July and its perigee was lowered sharply, bringing it
suspiciously close to the Briz upper stage, which had originally
delivered all four payloads into orbit in May."

This is the second time a Russian piece of orbital junk has suddenly
started to do maneuvers. The first time, in early 2014, the Russians
finally admitted five months after launch that the "junk" was actually
a satellite.

In both cases, the Russians have not told anyone what these satellites
are designed to do, though based on the second satellite's maneuvers
as well as its small size (about a foot in diameter) it is likely they
are testing new cubesat capabilities, as most cubesats do not have the
ability to do these kinds of orbital maneuvers. Once you have that
capability, you can then apply it to cubesats with any kind of
purpose, from military anti-satellite technology to commercial
applications

Read more at slashdot:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/11/01/1454232/a-mysterious-piece-of-russian-space-junk-does-maneuvers

http://russianspaceweb.com/Cosmos-2499.html