'An eye in space': Russia launches satellite to snoop on US national security mission. Here's what's happening

Russia may have launched a "spy satellite" to stalk an American spy satellite. A few months back, in February, the United States launched USA 326, a spy satellite aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Now, on Monday (August 2), a Russian satellite called Kosmos 2558, which is rumoured to be an "inspector aircraft".As per a report by Space.com even before the Russian satellite's launch rumours of it being a spy satellite to keep an eye on its US counterpart have been floating.Netherlands-based satellite tracker Marco Langbroek in a blogpost comments "Before the launch, there was a rumour that this was another 'inspector' satellite - a snooping satellite meant to covertly inspect another satellite."

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He goes on to point out that the longitude or the right ascension of the ascending node (RAAN) "of the newly launched Kosmos 2558 matches the RAAN of USA 326 closely, with a difference of only 0.04 degree (changing by about 0.01 degree/day)."

The two spacecraft are close to one another in altitude and are anticipated to have a close encounter, assuming neither makes any major manoeuvres during the following few days.

"With the current orbit, Kosmos 2558 will make a relatively close approach to USA 236 at August 4 near 14:47 UTC. The approach distance is ~75 km, almost all of that (73 km) is in altitude," writes Langbroek.

Based on the initial TLEs, in its current orbit Kosmos-2558 wil pass within 80 km of NRO's USA 326 satellite at about 1450 UTC Aug 4 (Thursday). Of course, the satellite may manuever before then. pic.twitter.com/0l1dhY8cV8 — Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) August 2, 2022

It appears that the object has been catalogued under number 53324 in a 97.25 degree inclined 284 x 425 km orbit, in the same orbital plane as USA 326 but a somewhat lower initial orbital altitude.
Will be interesting to see what it will do the coming weeks & what USA 326 will do pic.twitter.com/nPqZ1Tow5W — Dr Marco Langbroek (@Marco_Langbroek) August 1, 2022

Apparently, Russia has done a similar "stalking" a few years back. As Langbroek notes "In early 2020, Russia did something similar with Kosmos 2542/2543, directing it towards the KH-11 electro-optical reconnaissance satellite USA 245."

The reason why this actually might be a spying mission pertains to the USA Satellite's mission. NASA's archive for space science mission data: the NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive, describes USA 326 as a "classified payload". It is widely believed to be a new generation electro-optical IMINT satellite.

As per the Drive, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and SpaceX are working together on NROL-87, a secret national security programme, for this mission. According to a press release issued by the NRO after the initial launch, NROL-87 was created, constructed, and is currently being operated by the NRO to support its "overhead reconnaissance mission," which is primarily focused on ensuring national security by utilising space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).

(With inputs from agencies)

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