Cosmos 1517

Launch data:

Mission details:

• Confident enough that they could bring back the BORs with sufficient precision, the Russians decided to land the next two BORs in the Black Sea just west of Simferopol.
• The first was launched on 27 December 1983 as Cosmos-1517 and the second was orbited on 19 December 1984 as Cosmos-1614. During re-entry, the vehicles passed some 60-80 km over the territory of NATO countries such as Great Britain and West Germany, which strictly speaking was a violation of those countries' airspace. The TASS launch announcements differed from the earlier ones in acknowledging that the satellites "had performed a controlled entry into the atmosphere and landed in the predesignated area of the Black Sea".
  
  
  
  
• Involved in the recovery operations were four vessels of the Black Sea fleet, namely three recovery vessels (the Yamal, Donbass and Sevan) and the cruiser Leningrad, as well as Beriyev Be-12 and Antonov An-26 airplanes and Kamov Ka-25 helicopters. While Cosmos-1517 was successfully retrieved by the Yamal, it was later revealed that Cosmos-1614 was lost, having either burnedup in the atmosphere or sunk in the Black Sea. The recovery vessels, aircraft and helicopters searched the 70 x 30 kmlanding ellipse for about a week, but to no avail.