Cosmos 2462

Launch data:

Mission details:

• Optical reconnaissance. Will be deorbited in approximately 3 months.
• Russia's Cosmos-2462 spy satellite continues in orbit two months into a probable three-month mission, with an orbit of 180 x 360 km decaying to circa 175 x 310 km and then being reboosted. So far reboost burns have happened on Apr 19, Apr 28, May 8, May 18, May 29, Jun 6 and Jun 26, 2010.
• Russia's Kobal't-M class imaging satellite, Cosmos-2462, completed its mission on Jul 21, 2010 and landed in either Russia or Kazakhstan at around 0910 UTC. The spacecraft made its last orbit raising burn on Jul 11, to 186 x 348 km x 67.1 deg. On Jul 18 it lowered its orbit from 183 x 330 km to 182 x 279 km, in preparation for landing; three debris pieces were also tracked briefly in orbit around Jul 20. The spacecraft is thought to carry two small recoverable film capsules; the second was presumably ejected shortly before the Jul 18 burn, while the first may have been recovered on or around Jun 9. Plausible capsule deorbit times on descending passes over Russia are 2010 Jun 9 at about 0425 and 2010 Jul 17 at about 1720 UTC, with recoveries circa 30 min later. Lifetime of Cosmos-2462 was 96 days, within the range of 76-107 days seen on the 5 earlier Kobal't-M missions between 2004 and 2009.