<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="21" > Russia's reconnaissance satellite, launched just in January, deorbited over North America, producing a dazzling fireball</h1>
According to U.S. sources, Russia's reconnaissance satellite Cosmo-2551, which has just been launched in January, has been deorbited over North America, and the satellite is the first satellite in a series of miniature optical reconnaissance satellites of the Russian military department. On September 9, 2021, it was put into orbit by the Soyuz-2.1V carrier rocket from the Plesetsk launch site. Deorbited on October 20, 2021, its wreckage was burned in the dense atmospheres of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Experts from the American Meteor Society released photo and video reports. According to the American Meteor Association, at about 04:43 on October 20, witnesses from nine U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario saw fireballs flying through the sky of the wreckage of the guardian star.
U.S. experts point out that because of the satellite's small mass — only about 150-250 kilograms — its wreckage burned up completely before it reached Earth.
Footage of the spacecraft crashing shows how the fallen satellite burned in the atmosphere. As a reconnaissance satellite, is it malfunctioning so quickly, or is it self-destruction at the end of the mission?
Earlier, the Russian Ministry of Defense pointed out that the satellite was successfully launched into the Earth's orbit. However, the operation requires some adjustments, which is equivalent to saying that in fact the satellite launch is a problem, either it is not in orbit, or the satellite is not started. As a result, the satellite actually did not work, and then slowly descended in orbit, rubbing against the thick atmosphere, producing a high temperature of more than three thousand degrees of destruction. According to Western data, satellites in orbit did not make any maneuvers and did not send any recorded radio signals, that is, apparently did not work after entering orbit.
Launched into a sun-synchronous orbit, the satellite has an altitude of about 300 kilometers and an inclination of 96.4 degrees, which would have required constant corrections to remain in that orbit. However, no orbital correction was made from the beginning, and the satellite began to descend from September 11, to about 180 km on October 11, and finally burned up in the dense atmosphere over North America on October 20.
Space-2551 is considered a new generation of small optical reconnaissance satellites, and the development of the satellite was signed by the Russian Ministry of Defense on November 1, 2016. The satellite project may be designated as a "small high-resolution spacecraft" (MKA-V). Presumably, the satellite weighs about 250 kg and may be lighter. Apparently, it is equipped with a digital camera developed by Belarus with a maximum resolution of 0.9 meters in panchromatic mode.
The loss of the Cosmos-2551 satellite is another blow in a series of failures that have long plagued Russian space reconnaissance satellites in recent years.