Kosmos 8 (russian: Космос 8 meaning ''Cosmos 8''), also known as DS-K-8 No.1 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 18 was a technology demonstration

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

which was launched by the

Soviet Union 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 national ...

in 1962. It was the eighth satellite to be designated under the Kosmos system, and the third spacecraft launched as part of the DS programme to successfully reach orbit, after

Kosmos 1 Kosmos 1 (russian: Космос 1 meaning ''Cosmos 1''), also known as DS-2 No.1 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 11 was a technology demonstration and ionospheric research satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1962. It was the firs ...

and

Kosmos 6 Kosmos 6 (russian: Космос 6 meaning ''Cosmos 6''), also known as DS-P1 No.1 as part of the Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik programme and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 16 was a prototype radar target satellite for anti-ballistic missile tests ...

. Its primary mission was to demonstrate the technologies of

SIGINT Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...

for future Soviet military satellites.

Spacecraft

Kosmos 8 was the only DS-K-8 satellite to be launched. It also carried a micrometeorite detector payload which discovered meteoroid flux. It had a mass of .

Mission

This satellite tested the Kust-8 SIGINT equipment in orbit.https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/ds-k-8.htm - 24 April 2020 It was launched aboard of the eighth flight of the

Kosmos-2I Kosmos-2I (GRAU Index: 11K63, also known as Cosmos-2I and also known by the designation Kosmos-2) is the designation applied to two Soviet carrier rockets, members of the R-12 Kosmos rocket family, which were used to orbit satellites between 196 ...

63S1 rocket. The launch was conducted from Mayak-2 at

Kapustin Yar Kapustin Yar (russian: Капустин Яр) is a Russian rocket launch complex in Astrakhan Oblast, about 100 km east of Volgograd. It was established by the Soviet Union on 13 May 1946. In the beginning, Kapustin Yar used technology, material ...

, and occurred at 05:02:00

GMT Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a cons ...

on 18 August 1962. Kosmos 8 was placed into 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 ...

with 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 ellip ...

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 ellip ...

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 Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

of 49.0°, 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 92.9 minutes. It decayed on 17 August 1963, one day short of a year after its launch.

References

Spacecraft launched in 1962 Kosmos 0008 1962 in the Soviet Union Spacecraft which reentered in 1963 Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik program {{USSR-spacecraft-stub

Spacecraft

Mission

See also

References