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 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 radioiso ...

for

anti-ballistic missile An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is a surface-to-air missile designed to counter ballistic missiles (missile defense). Ballistic missiles are used to deliver nuclear, chemical, biological, or conventional warheads in a ballistic flight trajec ...

tests, 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 nationa ...

in 1962.

Spacecraft

It was the sixth satellite to be designated under the Kosmos system, and the second spacecraft launched as part of the DS programme to successfully reach orbit, after Kosmos 1. It had a mass of . Its primary mission was to demonstrate the necessary technologies for radar tracking of spacecraft, which would allow future satellites to function as targets. It was the first

solar-powered Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic ef ...

satellite manufactured by Yuzhnoye.

Mission

It was launched aboard the seventh flight of the Kosmos-2I 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 16:00:00 GMT on 30 June 1962. Kosmos 6 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 m ...

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 el ...

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 el ...

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 reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Ea ...

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 pla ...

of 90.6 minutes. It decayed on 8 August 1962. Kosmos 6 was a prototype DS-P1 satellite, the first of four to be launched. Of the other three satellites, one was lost in a launch failure on 6 April 1963, and the remaining two successfully reached orbit as Kosmos 19 and Kosmos 25.

References

Spacecraft launched in 1962 1962 in the Soviet Union Kosmos 0006 Spacecraft which reentered in 1962 Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik program {{USSR-spacecraft-stub

Spacecraft

Mission

See also

References