Lancement de Kondor-E par une Strela depuis Baïkonour

Kondor

Russia launches radar satellite

June 27, 2013

Yet another two-decade-old Russian space project reached orbit Thursday.

The blastoff of the Strela rocket from Site 175 in Baikonur took place as scheduled on June 27, 2013, at 20:53:00 Moscow Summer Time, Interfax news agency reported. The launch vehicle heading east from the Kazakhstan launch site carried the Kondor-E satellite scheduled to separate from its rocket at 21:18:35 Moscow Time into a circular orbit with an altitude of 504.7 kilometers and an inclination 74.75 degrees toward the Equator.

Around two hours after the scheduled launch, several unofficial Russian sources confirmed that the spacecraft had successfully entered orbit.

The Kondor Earth-watching satellite has been in development since 1993 at NPO Mashinostroenia (or NPO Mash for short) based in Reutov on the south-eastern edge of Moscow.

Although NPO Mash is known primarily for its sea-based cruise missiles, the company is a direct descendant of Vladimir Chelomei's design bureau, the creator of some of the most significant vehicles in the Soviet space program including the Proton rocket and the Almaz space station. In fact, Almaz can be considered the actual precursor to the Kondor satellite.

Kondor-E blasted off on a Strela rocket from a very old but still operational underground launch pad. This hardened facility protected with a massive steel cover was originally built in the USSR along with numerous other fortified missile silos spread around Baikonur Cosmodrome. Although the main purpose of the site was testing Soviet UR-100-series ICBMs, the silo was also capable of launching an actual doomsday attack in the event of a nuclear war. Not coincidently, the facility is located just a short distance away from a site, where Soviet Proton rockets were launching into orbit Kondor's oversized predecessors equipped with large military radar antennas.