Russia has increased the number of military space launches in 2022
During 2022, Russia launched 14 military satellites : three navigation satellites, two GLONASS-K1 satellites and the latest GLONASS-M satellite; two Lotos-S1 electronic intelligence satellites; three provincial satellites, Cosmos-2558, launched in August, and Cosmos-2561 and Cosmos-2562 launched in October; four reconnaissance satellites, the radar-imaging satellite Neitron, the mapping satellite Bars-M and two optical-imaging satellites EO-MKA (also known as EMKA) (both were lost only weeks after entering orbit, respectively in April and in October); a Meridian-M communications satellite and a Tundra early warning satellite (Russianspaceweb.com, Dec. 14). In this way it has greatly improved its ability to global surveillance and use of geolocation.
In July and October 2022, Russia sent the fourth and fifth GLONASS-K1 next-generation navigation satellites into orbit. The first three GLONASS-K1s were launched in 2011, 2014 and 2020 respectively, with the first one no longer operational. Furthermore, the GLONASS-K1 launched in July 2022 may already suffer from some technical problems because it is still in flight tests. This contrasts sharply with the GLONASS-K1 and GLONASS-M satellites, sent into orbit in October and November, respectively, which as of December 2022 are already being put into service (Glonass-iac.ru, December 14).
The original plan called for the launch of nine GLONASS-K1 navigation satellites by 2020, with the gradual transition to GLONASS-K2 satellites from 2018 to 2020 (RIA Novosti, March 1, 2016; VPK-News, March 30, 2016). The launch plan of nine GLONASS-K1 satellites has instead been postponed to 2020-2022, but has not yet been implemented, as only one has been deployed (RIA Novosti, April 5, 2020). As of 2021, eight GLONASS-K1 and four GLONASS-K2 satellites were in various stages of production, with plans to contract 11 more GLONASS-K2 (Sibirskiy Sputnik, December 14, 2021).
Therefore, after the launch of two more GLONASS-K1 satellites in 2022, it is now planned to launch six navigation satellites of this type by 2024. In addition, up to 15 GLONASS-K2 satellites are expected to be launched into orbit by 2030 (Vestnik-glonass.ru, April 18, 27). While such uncertainty and planning contradictions seem strange, it means that Russia needs to launch three navigation satellites a year between 2023 and 2030 to meet its proclaimed goals. However, the forecasts of the high-level leaders of the GLONASS project, published on the eve of the Russian reinvasion of Ukraine, testify that the deployment rate will not exceed two navigation satellites per year for the current decade (Glonass-iac.ru , 20 th January). For comparison, Russia decommissioned three navigation satellites in 2022. Moreover, current financial planning will not improve the prospects, considering that the average annual expenditure on GLONASS was 28 billion rubles ($1.08 billion ) in the period 2011-2020 and that the cost of each GLONASS-M satellite was at least three times lower than the cost of each GLONASS-K1/K2 satellite.
Consequently, further degradation of the Russian space navigation system is almost inevitable and depends only on the robustness of the deployed navigation satellites, 13 of which, all GLONASS-M satellites, have exceeded their maximum guaranteed life.
Russia has not yet filled the decade-long shortage of high-resolution space systems for optical and radar imaging. As of December 2022, the Russian Armed Forces has launched two high-resolution optical imaging satellites, Persona-2 and Persona-3, in 2013 and 2015, respectively, and two radar imaging satellites, Kondor and Neitron, in 2013 and 2022, respectively. 2022. A Pion-NKS satellite with synthetic aperture radar was also launched into orbit, for naval radar and electronic intelligence purposes. Together with the Lotos-S1 satellites, the Pion-NKS is part of the Liana naval electronic intelligence system. During the same period, in 2021-2022, three attempts to launch small high-resolution EO-MKA satellites failed.
In past years, the Russian military relied on civilian high-resolution optical Resurs-P satellites, but all three satellites launched between 2013 and 2016 were decommissioned by 2022. In 2023, Russia plans to deploy several civilian satellites, which could be used by the Russian Armed Forces for reconnaissance purposes: a Resurs-P satellite and two radar-image satellites, the advanced Obzor-R and Kondor-FKA, which is based on the exported version of the Kondor satellite. In 2024-2025, Russia plans to launch one Resurs-P, two Resurs-PMs and another Kondor-FKA (Iki.cosmos.ru, November 14). Considering that Russia could rely on stockpiling imported and purchased space electronics before 2022, these plans seem quite realistic. However, some of these projects are highly likely to experience significant delays.
So the Russian military and surveillance space policy continues its activity, but it finds itself in the difficulty of having to manage an innumerable number of different projects, which leads to an inevitable dispersion of resources. The risk is that some strategic sectors, such as geolocation, are not sufficiently maintained and that some strategic capabilities may be diminished at a strategically relevant moment.
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The article Russia has increased the number of military space launches in 2022 comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-russia-ha-aumentato-il-numero-di-lanci-spaziali-militari-nel-2022/ on Sat, 17 Dec 2022 15:50:14 +0000.