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![]() | Russian Mix |
Tyneside, UK 2025 Feb 19 Wednesday, Day 50 | |
Curated by:
| 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.
![]() Page date: 2012 May 15
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