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Russian Mix


Tyneside, UK
2024 Mar 28
Thursday, Day 88

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Inclination of the 2012 Kobalt-M Launch from Plesetsk

The Kobalt (recoverable film-imaging reconnaissance satellite) mission in 2011 surprised observers by going to a slot at 81° inclination rather than the 67° used by previous missions. The question then became one of the inclination to be used by the 2012 flight.


Appearance of NOTAMS

2012 May 11, Russia issued a couple of NOTAMs, one related to Air Route closures:
V3500/12 - ATS RTE SEGMENTS CLSD AS FLW:
A333 SOTIS-DELIL,
G355 SOTIS-DOBUT,
G911 KOMOV-MEZEN NDB (MZ),
R355 ROKUT-MEZEN NDB (MZ),
R360 RINOV-ARBUK. 

SFC - UNL, DAILY 1350-1510, 17 MAY 13:50 2012 UNTIL 22 MAY 15:10 2012. 
CREATED: 11 MAY 06:42 2012
The other covered a restricted area where the segments of the payload shroud are expected to fall, and an additional pre-defined pair of zones that appear to be the strap-on booster and core stage fall areas respectively:
V3542/12 - FLW RESTRICTED AREAS ACT:
1. 681000N 0442000E-681000N 0454000E-675000N 0454000E- 673000N 0450000E-
673000N 0440000E-681000N 0442000E.
2.  ULR117.
3.  ULR119. 

SFC - UNL, DAILY 1350-1510, 17 MAY 13:50 2012 UNTIL 22 MAY 15:10 2012. 
CREATED: 12 MAY 07:00 2012
Translated into a map, we see the information displayed as below. On the map also (in yellow) is the ascent ground track of the Soyuz rocket as it pulls away from LC-16 at Plesetsk. Clearly, the new vehicle is going to follow last year's mission to 81°.4 inclination. The NOTAMs also indicate the most likely launch time to be 14:00 UTC and that there are reserve days right through to May 22.

For scale, the distance from the lanch pad to zone ULR119 is about 1,500 kilometres.

Kobalt-M NOTAM


Page date: 2012 May 15

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