Russia’s geostationary Luch-5X satellite (55841/2023-031A) was recently relocated to 4.7°E, right next to Astra 4A (32299/2007-057A), which is at 4.8°E. An important customer of Astra 4A is Ukraine. Interestingly, the relocation came shortly after Ukrainian broadcasters reported jamming of some of the Astra 4A signals by Russia. https://belsat.eu/en/news/29-03-2024-ukrainian-broadcaster-reports-severe-russian-disruption-of-the-astra-satellite-which-led-to-the-jamming-of-the-belsat-tv-signal https://media.1plus1.ua/en/news/reakciia-11-media-na-sprobi-voroga-zaglusiti-suputnikove-movlennia-ukrayini Luch-5X is a cover name for Yenisei-2 and like its predecessor Luch/Olimp (40258/2014-058A) is used to eavesdrop on foreign communications satellites. They perform a role similar to America’s USA 207 (PAN) and USA 257 (CLIO) satellites. More background on the Russian satellites is here: https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4696/1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4699/1 I don’t think Luch-5X itself is responsible for the jamming: 1) neither Luch-5X/Yenisei-2 nor Luch/Olimp have so far demonstrated any jamming capability and appear to be purely passive eavesdropping satellites. 2) the jamming reportedly began in early March (before Luch-5X was relocated to Astra 4A) and also affected Hotbird 13E, which is not being shadowed by any Russian satellites. Presumably, the jamming is being done by ground-based systems. Still, the fact that Luch-5X is visiting Astra 4A right after the reported jamming can hardly be a coincidence. What its exact role in all this is remains open to speculation. Bart Hendrickx _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list https://lists.seesatmail.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-lReceived on Tue Apr 09 2024 - 03:17:56 UTC
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