3dGameMan
02-16-2005, 08:21 AM
Missing: One Russian spy satellite: ~source (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6975674/)
By James Oberg
NBC News space analyst
Special to MSNBC
Updated: 8:35 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2005
HOUSTON - On the snowy steppes near Orenburg, southeast of the Ural Mountains in Siberia, teams of military search and rescue experts have spent the last month scanning the ground with metal detectors and probing the snow drifts for suspicious metal objects.
Their quest: Russia's most advanced spy satellite, which hasn't been seen since it came down to Earth on Jan. 9.
Midwinter cold, short periods of daylight, and blowing snow slowed the teams at every step, and now they appear to have given up.
No official announcement of the loss has been made. Observers speculate that's because Moscow is less worried about not finding the missing spy cameras and exposed film than about the potential catastrophe if agents of some other nation find and exploit the contents of the capsule.
But the greatest impact could be on arms control. Moscow uses imagery from such vehicles as a key ingredient in checking up on U.S. strategic weapons limited under various arms-control treaties. Such satellites, both American and Russian, are usually referred to in such treaties with the euphemism of “national technical means of verification."
The less a nation can verify arms control treaties, through satellites and other means, the less willing it may be to abide by them. And the less it can use spy satellites to verify the absence of aggressive developments and deployments in other countries, the more insecure it may feel.
The satellite loss "will certainly leave them wondering about open issues,” said Charles Vick, a Washington-based analyst for Global Security and an expert on the Russian space program.
"It will require them to rely on alternate sources and methods not always as reliable as imagery, until they can make up for the intelligence losses," he said.
Decline of Russia's satellite program
When the satellite in question launched last Sept. 24, it was identified publicly as "Kosmos-2410." Informed sources in the Russian news media, however, particularly at the independent newspaper Kommersant, quickly identified the satellite as a Kobalt-class photo reconnaissance vehicle.
Developed in the 1980s to replace earlier generations of Russian spy satellites, Kobalts had better cameras, longer lifetimes in space and an entirely new structural design. During flights that lasted for months, they would stash exposed spy film into small canisters and fire them back to Earth one after the other. At the end of a mission, the three-ton main vehicle –- a tapered cylinder that bears an uncanny resemblance to the U.S. Gemini spacecraft -– returned to Earth, carrying more film and allowing the expensive lens and cameras to be reused...
By James Oberg
NBC News space analyst
Special to MSNBC
Updated: 8:35 p.m. ET Feb. 15, 2005
HOUSTON - On the snowy steppes near Orenburg, southeast of the Ural Mountains in Siberia, teams of military search and rescue experts have spent the last month scanning the ground with metal detectors and probing the snow drifts for suspicious metal objects.
Their quest: Russia's most advanced spy satellite, which hasn't been seen since it came down to Earth on Jan. 9.
Midwinter cold, short periods of daylight, and blowing snow slowed the teams at every step, and now they appear to have given up.
No official announcement of the loss has been made. Observers speculate that's because Moscow is less worried about not finding the missing spy cameras and exposed film than about the potential catastrophe if agents of some other nation find and exploit the contents of the capsule.
But the greatest impact could be on arms control. Moscow uses imagery from such vehicles as a key ingredient in checking up on U.S. strategic weapons limited under various arms-control treaties. Such satellites, both American and Russian, are usually referred to in such treaties with the euphemism of “national technical means of verification."
The less a nation can verify arms control treaties, through satellites and other means, the less willing it may be to abide by them. And the less it can use spy satellites to verify the absence of aggressive developments and deployments in other countries, the more insecure it may feel.
The satellite loss "will certainly leave them wondering about open issues,” said Charles Vick, a Washington-based analyst for Global Security and an expert on the Russian space program.
"It will require them to rely on alternate sources and methods not always as reliable as imagery, until they can make up for the intelligence losses," he said.
Decline of Russia's satellite program
When the satellite in question launched last Sept. 24, it was identified publicly as "Kosmos-2410." Informed sources in the Russian news media, however, particularly at the independent newspaper Kommersant, quickly identified the satellite as a Kobalt-class photo reconnaissance vehicle.
Developed in the 1980s to replace earlier generations of Russian spy satellites, Kobalts had better cameras, longer lifetimes in space and an entirely new structural design. During flights that lasted for months, they would stash exposed spy film into small canisters and fire them back to Earth one after the other. At the end of a mission, the three-ton main vehicle –- a tapered cylinder that bears an uncanny resemblance to the U.S. Gemini spacecraft -– returned to Earth, carrying more film and allowing the expensive lens and cameras to be reused...