Kosmos 356 (russian: Космос 356 meaning ''Cosmos 356''), also known as DS-U2-MG No.2, was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

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 in 1970 as part of the

Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik (russian: Днепропетровский Спутник; ua, Дніпропетровський супутник), also known as DS, was a series of satellites launched by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1982. DS satel ...

programme. It was a spacecraft, which was built by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, and was used to investigate the

magnetic pole Magnetic pole may refer to: * One of the two ends of a magnet * Magnetic monopole, a hypothetical elementary particle * The magnetic poles of astronomical bodies, a special case of magnets, especially: ** The North Magnetic Pole The north mag ...

s of the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

Launch

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 ...

63SM carrier rocket was used to launch Kosmos 356 into

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 ...

. The launch took place from Site 133/1 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The launch occurred at 19:59:55 UTC on 10 August 1970, and resulted in the successful insertion of the satellite into orbit. Upon reaching orbit, the satellite was assigned its Kosmos designation, and received the International Designator 1970-059A. The North American Aerospace Defense Command assigned it the catalogue number 04487.

Orbit

Kosmos 356 was the second of two DS-U2-MG satellites to be launched, after Kosmos 321. It was operated in an orbit 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 , 81.9 degrees of

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 ...

, 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 92.3 minutes, before decaying from orbit and reentering the atmosphere on 2 October 1970.

References

Kosmos satellites Spacecraft launched in 1970 1970 in the Soviet Union Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik program {{USSR-spacecraft-stub