Kosmos 3 (russian: Космос 3 meaning ''Cosmos 3''), also known as 2MS No.1 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 13 was a scientific research and 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 ...

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.

Spacecraft

It was the third satellite to be designated under the Kosmos system, and the first spacecraft to be launched as part of the 2MS programme. Its primary missions were to develop systems for future satellites, and to record data about

cosmic ray Cosmic rays are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar System in our own ...

s and

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 ...

. Kosmos 3, an automatic geophysical station, was one of a series of Soviet Earth satellites whose purpose was to study outer space, the upper layers of the atmosphere, and the Earth. Scientific data and measurements were relayed to Earth by multichannel telemetry systems equipped with space-borne memory units. It had a mass of 330 kg.

Mission

It was launched aboard

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 s/n 4LK. It was the fifth flight of the Kosmos-2I, and the third to successfully reach orbit. 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 04:04:00

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 24 April 1962. Kosmos 3 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 93.8 minutes. It decayed on 17 October 1962. Kosmos 3 was a 2MS satellite, the first of two to be launched. The second, ''2MS No.2'', would be launched as

Kosmos 5 Kosmos 5 (russian: Космос 5 meaning ''Cosmos 5''), also known as 2MS #2 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 15 was a scientific research and technology demonstration satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1962. It was the fifth sate ...

on 28 May 1962. The 2MS was the second of two types of MS satellite to be launched, following the first 1MS spacecraft which had been launched as

Kosmos 2 Kosmos 2 (russian: Космос 2 meaning ''Cosmos 2''), also known as 1MS No.1 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 12 was a technology demonstration and a scientific research satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1962. It was the secon ...

References

Kosmos 0003 1962 in the Soviet Union 1962 in spaceflight Spacecraft launched in 1962 Spacecraft which reentered in 1962 {{USSR-spacecraft-stub

Spacecraft

Mission

See also

References