Secret maneuvers above the atmosphere: what is Russia looking for in Western civilian satellites? The Kremlin mobilizes the Kosmos fleet against private space technologies: the Pentagon takes action with the Ghost-R program.
After the admission of Pentagon to have missile weapons in orbit and to be sure that the Russia holds a similar deterrence, however never confirmed, a few days ago the news was published according to which a Russian satellite is playing like a cat with a mouse with a US commercial spacecraft, one of those which are probably used to help theUkraine. The satellite spies Kosmos 2612 it has in fact crossed the US system Iceye-X36officially a commercial satellite that can be used for a fee to observe the Earth using its powerful synthetic aperture radar.
The close encounter between the two artificial bodies would have occurred between 15 and 19 October and the episode attracted great attention in space circles since it occurred without any consent and at a surprisingly short distanceor a few meters. It is true that these “inspections” are not such a rare event: in recent years Russia, the United States and the China they have repeatedly maneuvered their satellites, bringing them close to those belonging to other nations. And much of this activity occurred ingeostationary orbit (Geo)located almost 36,000 kilometers above the Earth.
The cat and mouse game in orbital trajectories
At this distance from the Earth’s surface, the orbital speed coincides with the rotation speed of our planet, allowing spacecraft to constantly remain above a specific area of the Earth and therefore be geo-stationary. It is therefore a geostationary orbit considered prime for spy, telecommunications and weather control satellites, as well as for spacecraft designed to closely track and evaluate such devices. Kosmos 2612however, normally operates inlow Earth orbit (Leo)which is why its change of orbit caused a stir.
No rendezvous planned or announced: Russia has already done several and the internet’s memory takes us back to January 2020, when Kosmos 2543 approached about 30 kilometers from the US S-245; as well as in August 2022 Kosmos 2558 and two other unidentified satellites had come within 68 km of USA S-326. And on April 12, 2024, the Russian satellite Luch-2 approached another geostationary satellite. But if these episodes involved US equipment that was classified as spy satellites operated by the National Reconnaissance Office of the United States, this time with Iceye-X36 it is a private satellite whose official purpose would be Earth observation.
Helsinki’s radar eyes at the service of the front
Currently, there are approximately 80 Iceye satellites in low Earth orbit (Leo). These observe our planet and are able to see through clouds to collect data both day and night. Iceye is a company based in Finland and branches in the United States which, using the
This explains Russia’s interest in such activities, so much so as to increase the number of maneuverable satellites such as the five new Kosmos launched last April. In May, four units of this fleet performed maneuvers to move into a coplanar orbit with Iceye-X36, and since such movements involve the use of a significant amount of fuel that can no longer be replenished, the investment must be justified by the mission purpose.
Suspicions of jamming and evolution of the electronic dispute
But Russia may have done this maneuver just to understand the Iceye’s real capabilities and find out what exactly they are observing. With Kosmos 2612 which may have interfered by intercepting or jamming the sensors and transmissions to Earth. Also because, if the forces in the field are technologically almost at the same level, Ukraine still doesn’t have one space deterrence competitive with that of Moscow. It is not possible, at the moment, to determine exactly which devices Kosmos 2612 has on board, whether only those for radio communications to and from Earth, or also some jammer systems (jammers) capable of limiting transmissions and receptions of “enemy” satellites.
Meanwhile the Space Force and the Pentagon have contracted two companies to build new reconnaissance satellites capable of providing high-resolution images of objects more than 35,400 km from Earth. Last September 18, the US Space Command awarded the contracts for the prototypes to Northrop Grumman ea True Anomalywithin the program Ghost-Ran acronym that stands for High Definition Space Tactical Reconnaissance based on geosynchronous satellites.
The Pentagon’s response between Jackal drones and geostationary swarms
The agreement sees the collaboration of a historic US defense giant and a space technology company founded only four years ago, but both already linked to the Space Force by contracts for the development of space interceptors intended for the missile defense initiative Golden Dome of the Pentagon. Ghost-R aims to address some of these challenges by using commercially developed spacecraft, satellite platforms and electro-optical payloads to characterize objects in geostationary Earth orbit.
It seems that these orders are related to the Rg-xx program, the Space Forces initiative dedicated to new generation orbital tracking. The goal is to deploy a fleet of agile and economical reconnaissance satellites in geosynchronous orbit, thus helping to enhance US space defense capabilities by the end of the decade. Ryan Tintner, vice president of Northrop, said in a company statement on the agreement: “Space is becoming more congested and contested every day; our joint forces need clear and timely information about what is happening in orbit.” True Anomaly will provide the Jackal autonomous orbital vehicle (Jackal) and the Mosaic command and control systema suite of sensors designed for dynamic operations. Sources close to the Pentagon speak of a contract value of over six billion dollars and of launches of new satellites that could take place by 2028.
