Russian Military Satellite Burns up in De-orbit Move

Russian military satellite, Kosmos-2430 was guided out of the orbit on January 5 and has now burned down in the earth’s atmosphere.

"The Russian Kosmos-2430 military satellite was de-orbited in a planned manner at 09:48 Moscow time on January 5. The satellite fully burnt up in the dense layers of the atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean at an altitude of about 100 km," TASS quoted Russia’s Aerospace Force Command as saying Thursday.

The descent was captured by TV cameras covering a cricket match between New Zealand and Sri Lanka in Mount Maunganui, New Zealand. The match commentator suggested it was a “meteor shower,” The Guardian reported Thursday.

“Kosmos-2430” was placed in the orbit on October 23, 2007 to track the launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles from the territory of the United States with the use of optical telescopes and infrared sensors. According to the unconfirmed data, connection with “Kosmos-2430” was lost in 2012-2014 due to the fact that the satellite produced its own resource, the TASS report stated.

Russia is currently in the process of upgrading the Soviet-era system with more advanced missile-monitoring “Tundra” satellites. Tundra, also known as EKS or Unified Space System (USS), is a constellation of Missile Early Warning Satellites established by Russia between 2015 and 2020 to close a gap in space-based missile tracking capabilities. These satellites identify ballistic missile launches from outer space and complement early warning radars.