The old Soviet satellite Kosmos 917 entered the atmosphere over near the coast of Canada

(Gunter Dirk Krebs / https://bit.ly/3GkM0uN)

The Soviet satellite Kosmos 917, launched in 1977, entered the atmosphere and burned up over the Atlantic Ocean, between Greenland and the coast of Canada.

The warming satellite was blown up by a self-destruct system in 1979, but, apparently, did not collapse completely. Now 12 large fragments of the device remain in orbit.

The Soviet missile attack warning system consisted of two components:

• ground (a network of over-the-horizon and over-the-horizon radars)
• space

By 1979, it included four satellites of the so-called Oko system.

As a matter of fact, they were orbiting infrared telescopes that could see the flames of ballistic missile engines against the background of the earth.

The first generation of these devices had the following characteristics:

• a mass of 2.4 tons (with fuel)
• a telescope installed on board with a mirror diameter of 30 centimeters
• a sensor capable of seeing in the infrared and visible range

The satellites were launched either into a highly elliptical orbit using the Molniya-M rocket from the Plesetsk cosmodrome, or into a geostationary orbit using Protons from Baikonur.

Data from satellites was transmitted in real time to the Serpukhov-15 command post, and in 1983, a false alarm on this system almost led to a nuclear war.

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FAILED SYSTEMS
Problems plagued the system when it first started operating in the 1970s: Of the 13 satellites launched between 1972 and 1979, only 7 survived more than 100 days.

The fact is that the vehicles were equipped with a self-destruct system, which worked in case of loss of communication with the ground.

In this way, the developers decided to prevent the risk of falling into the hands of the Chinese or US military.

However, in the period up to 1983, when the self-destruct system was removed, 11 of the 31 launched vehicles were blown up in orbit.

The Kosmos 917 was launched on June 16, 1977 from the Plesetsk cosmodrome and it was put into a highly elliptical orbit

The satellite lived longer than expected, it worked until March 30, 1979, when it was blown up by a self-destruct system.

However, the device, apparently, did not collapse completely: a cloud of 15 relatively large satellite fragments appeared in orbit, three of them deorbited in 2011, 2013 and 2022.

Now, according to the US military, the device entered the atmosphere on January 4.

The estimated entry point was over the Labrador Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean, about 400 kilometers from the coast of Greenland.

Sources:

• TASS: https://tass.ru/kosmos/16732109
• Kosmosnews.fr: https://kosmosnews.fr/2023/01/01/kosmos-917-devrait-bruler-dans-latmosphere-dans-les-3-prochains-jours/

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#science #soviet #satellites #kosmos917 #russia #news #nftmc