FW: Re: Cosmos 1766

Jeff Hunt (jhunt@eagle1.eaglenet.com)
Fri, 27 Dec 96 20:04:43

Here is some more info on Cosmos 1766 courtesy of Bart Hendrickx.
--- On Fri, 27 Dec 96 18:37:04 EST  Bart Hendrickx <bhen@innet.be> wrote:

>On 26 December Jeff Hunt wrote :

>> Would anyone (at FPSpace) have any background info on this sat; cat.no. 
>>16881, int.designation 86-055A. Resources such as the Sat Encylopedia, 
>>SpaceWarn,etc. don't help. USSPACECOM lists it as having a radar cross 
>>section of 24.4m2.

>Cosmos 1766 was one of the Okean series of satellites developed by the
>Yuzhnoe design bureau in the Ukraine to study the ocean with a side-looking
>radar. They were originally launched under the veil of the "Cosmos"
>programme, were then officially announced as Okean and the latest
>satellite in the series was called "Sich" (a Ukrainian word). The Okean-O
>satellites weigh 1950 kg and contain 505 kg of scientific equipment.
>This is a summary of launches, taken from "Novosti Kosmonavtiki" 18/1995
>:
>
>official name	launch date	production name		worked until
>
>Cosmos-1076	12 Feb 1979	Okean-E Nr. 1		31 Mar 1980
>Cosmos-1151	23 Jan 1980	Okean-E Nr. 2		13 Oct 1981
>Cosmos-1500	28 Sep 1983	Okean-OE Nr. 1		16 Jul 1986
>Cosmos-1602	28 Sep 1984	Okean-OE Nr. 2		5 Dec 1986
>Cosmos-1766	28 Jul 1986	Okean-O1 Nr. 1		24 Oct 1988
>Cosmos-1869	16 Jul 1987	Okean-O1 Nr. 2		3 May 1989
>Okean		 5 Jul 1988	Okean-O1 Nr. 3	   	14 Jun 1990
>launch failure	 9 Jun 1989	Okean-O1 Nr. 4
>Okean		 28 Feb 1990	Okean-O1 Nr. 5	   	18Jul 1991
>Okean	 	4 Jun 1991	Okean-O1 Nr. 6		4 Jan 1994
>Okean-O1	11 Oct 1994	Okean-O1 Nr. 7		operational ?
>Sich-1		31 Aug 1995	Okean-O1 Nr. 8		operational ?
>
>The first two satellites were experimental and carried no side-looking
>radar. I have no information on the current status of Okean-O1 Nr. 7
>and 8. They were launched with an expected lifetime of six months.
>Sich-1 was the last satellite in the Okean-O1 series. Yuzhnoe is working
>on an uprated version now called Okean-U. Weighing in at 6360 kg, it is
> to be placed into a 98=B0 sun-synchronous  orbit by the Zenit-2 booster.
>At the time of the Sich-1 launch the first launch was expected "no earlier
> than mid-1996", but this clearly did not materialize.
>
>For more info on Okean (plus colour picture), check out an article by
>Brian Harvey in  <Spaceflight> February 1989, pp. 62-63.
>
>Bart Hendrickx
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