Kosmos 388 (russian: Космос 388 meaning ''Cosmos 388''), known before launch as DS-P1-Yu No.43, 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 ...

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 radioi ...

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 Pivdenne Design Office ( uk, Державне конструкторське бюро «Південне» ім. М. К. Янгеля , lit=State design bureau "Southern", named after M. K. Yangel, translit=Derzhavne konstruktors ...

, and was used as a radar calibration target for anti-ballistic missile tests.

Launch

Kosmos 388 was successfully launched 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 ...

on 18 December 1970, with the rocket lifting off at 09:39:13 UTC. The launch took place from Site 133/1 at the

Plesetsk Cosmodrome Plesetsk Cosmodrome ( rus, Космодром «Плесецк», r=Kosmodrom "Plesetsk", p=kəsmɐˈdrom plʲɪˈsʲet͡sk) is a Russian spaceport located in Mirny, Arkhangelsk Oblast, about 800 km north of Moscow and approximately 200 ...

, and used a

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 19 ...

63SM

carrier rocket A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and syste ...

. Upon reaching orbit, it was assigned its Kosmos designation, and received 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 ...

1970-112A.

Orbit

Kosmos 388 was the thirty-eighth of seventy nine DS-P1-Yu satellites to be launched, and the thirty-fifth of seventy two to successfully reach orbit. 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 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 , 70.9 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 reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

, 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 minutes. It remained in orbit until it decayed and reentered the atmosphere on 10 May 1971.

References

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