Only two years after its launch, one of Russia's early warning satellites has been officially declared non-operational. With the loss of Cosmos-2479 Russia no longer has any early warning satellites in geo-synchronoous orbit. The two remaining early warning satellites are in HEO, and provide much more limited coverage.
Russia does have two older types of missile detection satellites in highly elliptical orbits, meaning that location relative to the Earth often changes. In order to provide constant coverage with these types of satellites, Russia would need to maintain six of them in space at any given moment. As a result, Moscow can now only monitor U.S. missile launches for three hours a day.
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Russia Announces Loss of Last Early Warning Satellite in Geo-Sync
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(Score: -1) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @07:26AM
...early-warning satellite loses you!
so does this mean russia now only has 9,999 satellites instead of 10,000
they'll have to launch another 10 (at a lower cost than 1 us satellite) to save face
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Thursday June 26 2014, @07:30AM
what will they pay with? vodka?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @07:38AM
rubles will buy far more rocket in russia than dollars could ever buy in america
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @08:05AM
Happy space flight Laika, was nice knowing you...
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday June 26 2014, @08:20AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by q.kontinuum on Thursday June 26 2014, @08:48AM
But I think this confirms that someone lost his marbles...
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 26 2014, @08:50AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Thursday June 26 2014, @06:04PM
I wonder if the satellite gave them an early warning that it was going to fail?
(Score: 1) by karmawhore on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:44PM
If Capt Janeway were president, she would let them use some of ours.
Problem solved!
=kw= lurkin' to please
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 26 2014, @04:18PM
We don't share our technology with the Kazon.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @02:51PM
Why would we believe this? Until an independent 3rd party verifies this for itself (US DoD?), I suggest we all assume this is hogwash and act accordingly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 26 2014, @05:43PM
That is the wrong question. 'Why would they announce this easily verifiable information?' is the right question. Every modern nation has the ability to check these things. Odds are that this is very old news to people that have a need to care about it. Announcing it is just a public effort to garner budgetary support. This has been a problem for awhile and they have not been able to fix it quietly, so now they are trying the loud approach.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 26 2014, @09:20PM
Budgetary support? In a command economy? (Yes, Russia still is very much a command economy).
I agree that probably everyone knows this bird is dead. But there was no reason to announce anything at all, and that would have been the wise choice.
So there is a motive here, we just don't know what it is.
In other news, North Korea launched several short range missiles [usatoday.com] into the sea again the other day in their never ending war on the fish. Perhaps plausibility deniability is something the Russians feel a sudden need for.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Hawkwind on Thursday June 26 2014, @11:40PM
(Score: 1) by Valkor on Thursday June 26 2014, @03:33PM
It's cool, man, we won't nuke you. Really! I promise!