![Meteor 2-IMG 7645](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Meteor_2-IMG_7645.jpg)
The Meteor spacecraft are
weather observation satellites 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 ...
and Russia. The Meteor satellite series was initially developed during the 1960s.
[Soviet Weather Satellite Falls in Antarctica](_blank)
RIA Novosti
RIA Novosti (russian: РИА Новости), sometimes referred to as RIAN () or RIA (russian: РИА, label=none) is a Russian state-owned domestic news agency. On 9 December 2013 by a decree of Vladimir Putin it was liquidated and its asse ...
, 27 March 2012, accessed 28 March 2012 The Meteor satellites were designed to monitor atmospheric and sea-surface
temperature
Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer.
Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied o ...
s,
humidity
Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation, dew, or fog to be present.
Humidity depe ...
,
radiation
In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes:
* ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...
,
sea ice
Sea ice arises as seawater freezes. Because ice is less dense than water, it floats on the ocean's surface (as does fresh water ice, which has an even lower density). Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth's surface and about 12% of the world's oce ...
conditions, snow-cover, and
clouds
In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may com ...
. Between 1964 and 1969 a total of eleven Soviet Union Meteor satellites were launched.
Satellites
Meteor-1
Meteor 1-26 was considered to be the most likely candidate for a 7 January 2017 satellite near collision.
The
Joint Space Operations Center
The Combined Space Operations Center (CSpOC) is a U.S.–led multinational space operations center that provides command and control of space forces for United States Space Command's Combined Force Space Component Command. The CSpOC is located at ...
which announced the possible collision didn't identify the satellites involved but third-party observers were of the opinion that Meteor 1-26 and
DMSP F15 were the most likely candidates.
; Meteor-1 launches
Meteor-2
The Meteor-2 series, based on the Meteor-1, was the second generation of Soviet meteorological satellites. They were launched into orbit at first by the Vostok-2M launch vehicle until that was replaced by the
Tsyklon-3
The Tsyklon-3, also known as Tsiklon-3 and Cyclone-3 (known as SL-14 by the United States DoD), GRAU index 11K68, was a Soviet, and subsequently Ukrainian orbital carrier rocket. Tsyklon 3 rocket body debris accounts for more than 500 pieces of ...
launch vehicle in the early 1980s. Between 1975 and 1993, 21 Meteor-2's were launched. They were flown in non-sun-synchronous polar orbits with altitudes between 850 and 950 km and inclinations of 81-82º. They weighed about 1300 kg and had two solar arrays.
The instruments consisted of three television-type (frame technique) VIS and IR scanners, a five-channel scanning radiometer and a radiometer (RMK-2) for measuring radiation flux densities in the near-Earth space.
In addition to its regular payload, Meteor-2 21 carried a unique Fizeau Retro Reflector Array (RRA) for Satellite Laser Ranging applications.
Several of the satellites have begun to break up and create debris. #16 broke up in 1998 after a propulsion failure. #18 broke up the following year for unknown reasons. #4 broke up in March 2004. #17 broke up in June 2005.
Meteor-2-5
Meteor 2-5 launched on October 31, 1979 by the USSR out of
Plesetsk
Plesetsk (russian: Плесе́цк) is an urban locality (a work settlement) and the administrative center of Plesetsky District, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, situated about northeast of Moscow and south of Arkhangelsk. Municipally, it is t ...
on a
Vostok 2-M with 1st Generation Upper Stage. It has undergone several breakup events, the first before January of 2005 and the last as recently as 2013 or 2014, resulting in 83 known pieces of which 60 were still on-orbit as of 2019.
Meteor-2-7
Meteor 2-7 launched on May 14, 1981 by the USSR out of
Plesetsk
Plesetsk (russian: Плесе́цк) is an urban locality (a work settlement) and the administrative center of Plesetsky District, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, situated about northeast of Moscow and south of Arkhangelsk. Municipally, it is t ...
on a
Vostok 2-M with 1st Generation Upper Stage. It had a weight of 2750 kg, and contained the usual suite of communication and orbit control equipment powered by large solar arrays. It's mission was cloud observation and IR temperature/humidity sounding, using a Radiation Measurement Complex (RMk-2), Infrared Sounding Radiometer, Television Camera and Infrared Instrument. It ceased operations on November 14, 1982. In March of 2004, it experienced an event, or a series of events, that caused it to break into 8 pieces. The cause of this break-up is unknown.
Meteor-2-21
Meteor-2-21/Fizeau is the twenty-first and last in the Meteor-2 series of Russian
meteorological satellite
A weather satellite or meteorological satellite is a type of Earth observation satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites can be polar orbiting (covering the entire Earth asynchronously), or geo ...
s.
ILRS Mission Support Status:
Satellite Laser Ranging
In satellite laser ranging (SLR) a global network of observation stations measures the round trip time of flight of ultrashort pulses of light to satellites equipped with retroreflectors. This provides instantaneous range measurements of milli ...
(SLR) tracking support of this satellite was discontinued in October 1998. What makes Meteor-2-21 distinctive from the other meteorological satellites is its unique
retroreflector
A retroreflector (sometimes called a retroflector or cataphote) is a device or surface that reflects radiation (usually light) back to its source with minimum scattering. This works at a wide range of angle of incidence, unlike a planar mirror, ...
array. The name ''Fizeau'' is derived from a French physicist,
Armand Fizeau who, in 1851, conducted an experiment which tested for the
aether convection coefficient. SLR tracking of this satellite was used for precise
orbit determination
Orbit determination is the estimation of orbits of objects such as moons, planets, and spacecraft. One major application is to allow tracking newly observed asteroids and verify that they have not been previously discovered. The basic methods wer ...
and the
Fizeau experiment
The Fizeau experiment was carried out by Hippolyte Fizeau in 1851 to measure the relative speeds of light in moving water. Fizeau used a special interferometer arrangement to measure the effect of movement of a medium upon the speed of light.
A ...
. The Fizeau experiment tests the theory of
special relativity
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates:
# The laws o ...
– that distance events that are simultaneous for one observer will not be simultaneous for another observer who is in motion relative to the first observer.
Retroreflector Array (RRA) Characteristics: The retro-reflector array consists of three corner cubes in a linear array with the two outer corner cubes pointing at 45 degree angles relative to the central cube. The central cube is made of fused silica and has a two-lobe
Far Field Diffraction Pattern (FFDP) providing nearly equal intensities for compensated and uncompensated velocity aberration. Both outer reflectors have aluminum coating on the reflecting surfaces and near-diffraction-limited FFDPs. One of the end reflectors is made of fused silica with an index of refraction of 1.46 and should provide partial compensation of the velocity aberration. The other end reflector is made of fused glass with an index of refraction of 1.62 and should provide a perfect compensation of the velocity aberration.
SLR full-rate data from
MOBLAS 4, MOBLAS 7, and
Maidanak seem to confirm the presence of the compensating influence of the Fizeau effect.
Resur-1, another Russian satellite launched in 1994, has 2 corner cubes reflectors with near diffraction-limited FFDPs, which were specifically designed for the continuation of this experiment.
WESTPAC
Westpac Banking Corporation, known simply as Westpac, is an Australian multinational banking and financial services company headquartered at Westpac Place in Sydney, New South Wales.
Established in 1817 as the Bank of New South Wales, it ...
, a future SLR satellite, will verify indisputably the existence or otherwise of the Fizeau effect.
Instrumentation: Meteor-2-21/Fizeau had the following instrumentation on board:
# Scanning telephotometer
# Scanning infrared radiometers
# Radiation measurement complex
# Retroreflector array
Meteor-Priroda
; Meteor-Priroda launches
Meteor-3
![Cyclone-3 rocket launching Meteor-3 satellite](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Cyclone-3_rocket_launching_Meteor-3_satellite.png)
The Meteor-3 series was launched 7 times between 1984 and 1994 after a difficult and protracted development program that began in 1972. All the satellites were launched on
Tsyklon-3
The Tsyklon-3, also known as Tsiklon-3 and Cyclone-3 (known as SL-14 by the United States DoD), GRAU index 11K68, was a Soviet, and subsequently Ukrainian orbital carrier rocket. Tsyklon 3 rocket body debris accounts for more than 500 pieces of ...
rockets.
These satellites provide weather information including data on
clouds
In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may com ...
, ice and snow cover, atmospheric
radiation
In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes:
* ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...
and
humidity
Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation, dew, or fog to be present.
Humidity depe ...
. The Meteor-3 class of satellites orbit in a higher altitude than the Meteor-2 class of satellites thus providing more complete coverage of the Earth's surface. The Meteor-3 has the same payload as the Meteor-2 but also includes an advanced scanning
radiometer
A radiometer or roentgenometer is a device for measuring the radiant flux (power) of electromagnetic radiation. Generally, a radiometer is an infrared radiation detector or an ultraviolet detector. Microwave radiometers operate in the microwave w ...
with better spectral and spatial resolution and a
spectrometer
A spectrometer () is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomenon where the ...
for determining total
ozone
Ozone (), or trioxygen, is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula . It is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope , breaking down in the lo ...
content. Meteorological data is transmitted to four primary sites in the former
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 conjunction with about 80 other smaller sites.
; Meteor-3 launches
Meteor-3-5
Meteor-3-5, launched in 1991, is in a slightly higher orbit than Meteor-2-21, and operated until 1994. It transmitted on 137.300 MHz. Mechanically, it is similar to Meteor-2-21. Which satellite was in operation depended on the sun angles and consequently the seasons. Meteor-3-5 was usually the (
Northern Hemisphere
The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the Equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined as being in the same celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the solar system as Earth's Nort ...
) "summer" satellite while 2-21 was in operation for approximately the half-year centered on winter. The satellite carried the second
Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer
The Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) was a NASA satellite instrument, specifically a spectrometer, for measuring the ozone layer. Of the five TOMS instruments which were built, four entered successful orbit. The satellites carrying TOMS ins ...
(TOMS) aloft as the first and the last American-built instrument to fly on a Soviet spacecraft. Launched from the
Plesetsk
Plesetsk (russian: Плесе́цк) is an urban locality (a work settlement) and the administrative center of Plesetsky District, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, situated about northeast of Moscow and south of Arkhangelsk. Municipally, it is t ...
, Russia, facility near the
White Sea
The White Sea (russian: Белое море, ''Béloye móre''; Karelian and fi, Vienanmeri, lit. Dvina Sea; yrk, Сэрако ямʼ, ''Serako yam'') is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is su ...
, on 15 August 1991, Meteor-3 TOMS had a unique orbit that presents special problems for processing data. Meteor-3 TOMS began returning data in August 1991 and stopped in December 1994.
Meteor-3-6/PRARE
The Meteor-3-6/PRARE satellite is the sixth in the Russian Meteor-3 series of meteorological satellites launched in 1994.
ILRS Mission Support Status: Satellite laser ranging and PRARE data was used for precision orbit determination and intercomparison of the two techniques. ILRS tracking support of this satellite was discontinued on 11 November 1995.
Instrumentation: Meteor-3-6 has the following instrumentation on board:
# Scanning TV-sensor
# Visible light and infrared radiometers
# Scanning infrared radiometer
# Ozone Mapper
# Precise Range and Range-Rate Equipment (PRARE)
# Retroreflector array
RetroReflector Array (RRA) Characteristics: The retro-reflector array is a box wing annulus with a diameter of 28 cm and has 24 corner cube reflectors.
Meteor-3M
![Meteor3M](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Meteor3M.jpg)
The Meteor-3M series of satellites was to be an advanced series of polar orbiters with one 1.4 km resolution visible channel and a ten-channel radiometer with 3 km resolution. Initially four Meteor-3M satellites were planned, however due to financial difficulties only one was launched.
Meteor-M
The first Meteor-M satellite,
Meteor-M No.1, was launched 17 September 2009 16:55:07 UTC from
Baikonur
Baikonur ( kk, Байқоңыр, ; russian: Байконур, translit=Baykonur), formerly known as Leninsk, is a city of republic significance in Kazakhstan on the northern bank of the Syr Darya river. It is currently leased and administered ...
by a
Soyuz-2
Soyuz-2 (GRAU index 14A14) is a modernized version of the Soviet Soyuz rocket. In its basic form, it is a three-stage launch vehicle for placing payloads into low Earth orbit. Compared to the previous versions of the Soyuz, the first-stage bo ...
-1b/Fregat rocket. Its mission ended in 2014.
The second satellite,
Meteor-M No.2, was launched 8 July 2014 16:58:28 UTC from Baikonur by a Soyuz-2-1b/Fregat rocket. Its mission is scheduled to last 5 years.
On 27 November 2017, the launch of
Meteor-M No.2-1 was lost after a programming error;
[Russian satellite lost after being set to launch from the wrong spaceport: Deputy prime minister admits programmers gave the US$45 million device coordinates for Baikonur rather than Vostochny cosmodrome]
/ref>[Soyuz 2-1B launch with Meteor-M ends in apparent Fregat-M failure]
/ref> also lost were 18 smaller satellites from other nations.
On 5 July 2019, the replacement satellite for the failed Meteor-M No.2-1 satellite, the Meteor-M No.2-2 (also known as Meteor M2-2) was launched from Vostochny cosmodrome
The Vostochny Cosmodrome (russian: Космодром Восточный, ''Kosmodrom Vostochny'', "Eastern Spaceport") is a Russian spaceport (still partly under construction) above the 51st parallel north in the Amur Oblast, in the Russian ...
.
On 18 December 2019, image downlink from Meteor-M No.2-2 ceased. Tracking revealed the craft had suffered degradation in orbit with a decrease in perigee. NORAD
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...
was not able to identify any space object involved in a collision. Roscosmos later confirmed that the satellite had suffered a decompression of its thermal control system following what is presumed to be a micrometeoroid impact. Following the incident, the spacecraft was automatically switched into a low-power mode and ground operators worked to restore the satellite's orbit and orientation. By 25 December 2019, the satellite had resumed controlled flight, but the future of its mission remains uncertain.
More Meteor-M satellites are currently being developed. As of August 2022, Meteor-M No.2-3 and No.2-4 are scheduled for launch in 2023, No.2-5 in 2024, and No.2-6 in 2025.
See also
* Elektro–L
Elektro–L (russian: Электро-Л) is a series of meteorological satellites developed for the Russian Federal Space Agency by NPO Lavochkin. The first satellite, Elektro-L No.1, was launched on 2 January 2011. It is the first Russian weathe ...
, Russian geosynchronous meteorological satellites
References
External links
VNIIEM description of Meteor-M
Sputnik server
eoPortal Meteor overview
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20041018081620/http://ilrs.gsfc.nasa.gov/satellite_missions/list_of_satellites/meteor3.html NASA International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS)*
NASA ILRS Meteor 3-6
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meteor (Satellite)
Weather satellites of the Soviet Union
*
Earth observation satellites of the Soviet Union
Satellite series