A Russian military satellite came within a few dozen meters of a Western satellite used by Ukraine

A Russian military satellite came within just a few dozen meters of a European commercial satellite under contract with the United States, which provides support to Ukraine. The maneuvers began in late September, when the Russian military satellite Cosmos-2612 abruptly changed its speed to join the same orbit as the Finnish commercial satellite ICEYE-X36.

Launched into low orbit by Russia in April, Cosmos-2612 then continued its maneuvers to get within a hundredth of a degree of the Finnish satellite, according to trajectory data from the two satellites analyzed by AFP. According to specialists, on the morning of Sunday October 18, the distance between the two satellites was less than a hundred meters.

This event, followed by the scientific community, raised questions about the capabilities of the Russian satellite, particularly in terms of interception, jamming or espionage in space. This is not the first time that Russian satellites have maneuvered into close proximity to satellites of other countries.

“The combination of several factors made this event particularly worrying,” Clayton Swope, space security specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told AFP. “The satellite is aligned on the same orbital plane in low Earth orbit” as the commercial ICEYE satellite which “provides support to Ukraine,” he listed.

According to Clayton Swope, “there is nothing to suggest that it (the Russian satellite) would have needed to carry out the maneuvers it carried out for a peaceful reason”. A spokesperson for the American branch of ICEYE, contacted by AFP, indicated that they were “aware of the situation” and “monitoring it closely”.

In a document on space threats, the United States Space Force (USSF) points out that in May of this year, Russia carried out "very fuel-intensive" orbital maneuvers to position four military satellites near a Western commercial radar satellite used by Ukraine. This satellite, like ICEYE-X36, is equipped with high-resolution radar sensors (SAR in English), which makes it possible to scan the Earth at night or when the sky is covered with clouds.

According to the USSF, Russia has deployed several satellites into orbit to test kinetic and non-kinetic interception capabilities. For Swope, however, it is “impossible to confirm that Cosmos-2612 was equipped with a weapon.” According to a memo published by Swope, Russian activities to counter Western space capabilities must be evaluated “in the context of Russian aggressive activities in the gray zone.”

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Moscow has considered the use of Western commercial satellites for military purposes as “indirect participation” in the conflict. “Quasi-civilian infrastructures could become legitimate targets for a response,” Konstantin Vorontsov, an official from the Russian Foreign Ministry, threatened in October 2022 at the UN.

Monday morning, the Cosmos-2612 satellite moved away from ICEYE-X36: the two machines were then a few kilometers apart. Last week, the American ISR Institute, specializing in defense, intelligence and security, highlighted the possibility of a new unsolicited rapprochement maneuver between Russian satellites and an ICEYE satellite in the coming weeks.