The war in Ukraine also has an unusual space front, still dormant, which “opens” in 2022, and continues to this day. It is a true intelligence story, SIGINT to be precise.
The Russian government did not release preliminary information about the launch payload, but on July 22, 2022, authorities issued warnings to avoid two areas in the Barents Sea along the overland route associated with the launch attempt scheduled for August 1-5, 2022. The launcher with the satellite was transported to the Plesetsk launch pad on July 29, 2022.
The eighth Soyuz-2-1v rocket lifted off on August 1, 2022, at 23:25:48.401 (Moscow time) from Pad 4 at Plesetsk Site 43 and apparently followed a standard ascent profile observed on several previous missions to a near-polar orbit with an inclination of 97.4 degrees to the equator, Russian Space Web reports.
The vehicle headed almost exactly due north. Both the first stage and the fragments of the tail section would have fallen into the Barents Sea, north of Murmansk. As the second stage continued to push, the payload fairing protecting the secret satellite split in two and separated as well. Its fragments would have fallen into the Arctic Ocean, south of the Spitsbergen Archipelago.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Volga’s upper stage and its payload separated from the second stage of the launcher at 23:34 Moscow time.
After the second stage was activated, the Volga and its payload entered an initial parking orbit. All further maneuvers to insert the satellite into its final orbit were performed with the help of the Volga’s main engine over the next 1.5 hours. After releasing the payload, the rocket’s upper stage performed a deorbit maneuver over the Pacific Ocean.
On the morning of August 2, 2022, the Russian military announced that it had successfully released the spacecraft, designated Kosmos-2558, into its planned orbit and that the satellite was under the control of ground assets of the Aerospace Forces.
According to Western observers, the Russian launch occurred exactly when the orbital plane of the classified American satellite USA-326 was flying over Plesetsk. Since this could not be a coincidence, observers assumed that the Russian mission would track and inspect the American satellite, as several Russian satellites of that type had done in the past. The USA-326 satellite was launched on a Falcon-9 rocket for the National Reconnaissance Office, NRO, on February 2, 2022, into a 512-kilometer orbit at an inclination of 97.4 degrees to the equator.
USA-326 was also known to have released a subsatellite, which received the identification number 53315 and entered an orbit of 348 by 388 kilometers. On August 1, 2022, the U.S. Space Force detected the newly launched Russian vehicle in an orbit of 284 by 425 kilometers at an inclination of 97.25 degrees to the equator, but the object was soon identified as the upper stage. The new satellite was then found to be in an orbit of 435 by 452 kilometers, considerably closer to the alleged American target than the stage that launched it into orbit.
The orbital difference between USA-326 and its Russian counterpart was only 0.14 degrees in orbital inclination, 65 kilometers at apogee, 53 kilometers at perigee, 0.20 revolutions per day in mean motion, and 0.04 degrees in Right Ascension of the Ascending Node, RAAN, or the longitudinal point at which a particular orbit crosses the plane of the Equator, when traveling from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere.
Within 24 hours of Kosmos-2558’s launch, the Russian satellite was expected to pass within 75 kilometers of USA-326 at approximately 14:47 UTC on August 4, 2022. Throughout 2022, Kosmos-2558 continued to make orbital corrections two to three times a month to maintain its orbital altitude between 441 and 444 kilometers, apparently to keep its orbital plane close to that of USA-326.
But by mid-March 2023, the Russian satellite had moved even closer to its apparent U.S. target, making periodic passes possible. Kosmos-2558 was expected to pass within approximately 44.6 kilometers of USA-326 on March 18, 2023, at 07:05 UTC.
By March 17, 2023, the spacecraft had stabilized in a 459 by 474 kilometer 100% orbit, while USA-326 was in a 485 by 509 kilometer orbit and in the corresponding orbital plane. Without further maneuvers, Kosmos-2558 would have passed within 34.2 kilometers of USA-326 on March 19, 2023 at 12:10 UTC and within 44.5 kilometers on March 29 2023 at 03:51 UTC.
Just before Kosmos-2558 approached for an even closer flyby of USA-326, scheduled for April 7, 2023, the American satellite moved to a higher orbit between April 5 and April 6, 2023. The sudden orbit correction was likely designed specifically to increase the distance of the Russian satellite’s closest approach, estimated at 31 kilometers. Janssen believed that this was the first maneuver performed by USA-326, which placed the satellite in an orbit of 493 x 502 kilometers, while Kosmos-2558 remained in an orbit of 455 x 470 kilometers. As a result, the estimated distance between the two satellites during their encounter on April 7 increased to 45 kilometers.
Kosmos-2558 ceased to maintain its proximity orbit with USA-326 and all orbital raising maneuvers on April 8, 2025, and its orbit has continued to decay naturally since then. However, on June 26, 2025, a new object was apparently ejected from the parent satellite at a separation velocity of about 10 kilometers per hour.
By the end of June 2025, Object C (full ID 2022-089C), as the newly released satellite was identified in the US Space Force catalog, was about 140 kilometers from its “mothership” Kosmos-2558. It was in a 545-by-451-kilometer orbit, with an inclination of 97.24 degrees toward the equator. On July 3, 2025, at approximately 18:42 UTC, Object C performed a sudden orbital lowering maneuver, descending to an altitude of approximately 435 kilometers, while Kosmos-2558 remained in its original orbit.
The new orbit brought Object C to within 81 kilometers of USA-326 on July 5, 2025, at approximately 00:54:20 UTC. Meanwhile, Kosmos-2558 passed at a minimum distance of almost 49 kilometers from USA-326 on the same day, at approximately 09:40:50.
With the current orbital configuration, Object C would have approached USA-326 approximately every 4.5 days, while Kosmos-2558 was positioned to pass at its minimum distance from the same U.S. satellite every six days.
The war of killer satellites passes silently over our heads and on the front at least twice a week, ready to explode.
Graziella Giangiulio
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