The Pentagon is speaking out against Russia’s launch of a spy satellite believed to overshadow one of its American counterparts in the same orbit.
The Russian satellite known as Kosmos 2558, It was launched on August 1 It appears to have been placed in roughly the same orbit as a classified US reconnaissance satellite It was launched on February 2nd. According to Dutch satellite tracker Marco Langbroek, as of August 2, Kosmos 2558 reflects the orbit of the US satellite A difference of only 0.04 degrees (Opens in a new tab) and separated 37 miles (60 kilometers).
General James H. Dickinson, commander of US Space Command (Spacecom) said in a statement Report (Opens in a new tab) Released by NBC News. “We see it in a similar orbit to one of our very valuable assets to the US government. And so we’ll continue as we always do, to keep updating that and keeping track of that,” Dickinson continued.
Related: Did Russia just launch a spacecraft to track a US spy satellite?
The NBC News camera crew was allowed into the Interagency Space Operations Center (JICSpOC (Opens in a new tab)) at Shriver Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. According to an NBC News report, this is the first time cameras have been allowed into the facility. JICSpOC’s mission is to collect and integrate data from a variety of Satellites and ground monitoring stations, and then share that information across the United States military and intelligence community.
“We have some really good space capabilities today that will tell us almost immediately if there is a launch,” an unnamed Space Force officer says in the NBC report.
Cosmos 2558 is rumored to be a so-called “inspection moon” capable of maneuvering close to other spacecraft, relatively speaking. Other Russian satellites have been spotted in the past Show the same behaviors.
The mission and capabilities of the American satellite “haunted” by Cosmos 2558 are unknown, but it is believed that it is capable of gathering intelligence.
This is not the first time that the United States has condemned Russia’s irresponsible activities in orbit. In 2021, Russia launched a missile at Destroying one of its defunct satellitesleaving behind thousands of pieces of trackable orbital debris, some of which have been pushed into the International Space Station Maneuver out of harm’s way.
“Dangerous and irresponsible behavior threatens the long-term sustainability of outer space and clearly shows that Russia’s claims to oppose weapons and weaponization of space are deceptive and hypocritical,” US State Department spokesperson Ned Price He said at that time.
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