On June 25 at 19:50 UTC, the Russian Space Forces launched a Soyuz 2.1b with the Pion-NKS satellite into orbit from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.

Because of its military nature, nothing was said officially about the satellite by Russian sources except that it was “a new generation spacecraft in the interests of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.” Once in orbit, it was given the designation Kosmos 2550. Kosmos is the standard designation given to all Russian (and previously, Soviet) military satellites to conceal their true purpose. In total, eighty soldiers and fifty vehicles were involved in the launch campaign.

Pion-NKS is the first in the next generation of naval reconnaissance satellites for Russia, combining the missions of two previous series of satellites into one spacecraft. The two missions are signals intelligence and radar. As such, Pion-NKS has the capability to identify where ships are in the ocean with radar and what transmissions they are sending or receiving with the signals intelligence equipment.

More Information

Russian Defense Ministry press release (Russian)

Roscosmos press release (Russian)

The status of Russia’s signals intelligence satellites (The Space Review)

Launch video