Kosmos 52 (russian: Космос 52 meaning ''Cosmos 52'') or Zenit-2 No.26 was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
, first generation, low resolution, optical film-return
reconnaissance satellite launched in 1965. A
Zenit-2
The Zenit-2 is a Ukrainian, previously Soviet, expendable carrier rocket. First flown in 1985, it has been launched 37 times, with 6 failures. It is a member of the Zenit family of rockets and was designed by the Yuzhmash.
History
With 13– ...
spacecraft, Kosmos 52 was the twenty-fifth of eighty-one such satellites to be launched
and had a mass of .
Kosmos 52 was launched by a
Vostok-2 rocket, serial number R15002-03,
flying from
Site 31/6 at the
Baikonur Cosmodrome. The launch took place at 09:36 GMT on 11 January 1965,
with the spacecraft receiving its
Kosmos designation - along with the
International Designator
The International Designator, also known as COSPAR ID, is an international identifier assigned to artificial objects in space. It consists of the launch year, a three-digit incrementing launch number of that year and up to a three-letter code repr ...
1965-001A and the
Satellite Catalog Number
The Satellite Catalog Number (SATCAT, also known as NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense) Catalog Number, NORAD ID, USSPACECOM object number or simply catalog number, among similar variants) is a sequential nine-digit number assigned by the Un ...
00968 - upon its successful insertion into orbit. It was the first satellite to be launched in the year
1965.
Kosmos 52 was operated in a
low Earth orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...
. On 11 January 1965 it had a
perigee
An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion.
General description
There are two apsides in any ell ...
of , an
apogee
An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion.
General description
There are two apsides in any ell ...
of , an
inclination
Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object.
For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...
of 65.0° and an
orbital period
The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets ...
of 89.5 minutes.
On 19 January 1965, eight days after launch, Kosmos 52 was deorbited so that its return capsule could be recovered by Soviet forces and its photos developed and analysed.
References
Kosmos satellites
Spacecraft launched in 1965
Spacecraft which reentered in 1965
Zenit-2 satellites
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