USA-245 slowly lifted into a higher orbit, away from the Russian satellites, while Kosmos-2543, the baby, zipped around the sky and, in the words of a later published space-threat assessment from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), changed its orbit “constantly”-an exceptional performance in space, where fuel is precious. Russia also noted that 2542 was equipped with cameras powerful enough to photograph the earth’s surface. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that the satellite born from Kosmos-2542, called Kosmos-2543, was also an inspector, and described its begetting as an “experiment,” intended to further maintenance of its fleet. Inspectors are smaller, more agile machines with precise navigation and controls, most often employed to closely approach or dock with friendly crafts to assess for maintenance. Speaking later, in February, General John W. “Jay” Raymond, chief of the newly established Space Force, would describe it by saying, “The way I picture it, in my mind, is like Russian nesting dolls.”Īccording to Russia, Kosmos-2542 was an inspector satellite, a type of craft also used by the United States and China. In fact, it had spat out another, smaller craft. But on December 6, the Russian vessel seemed to split in two. This in itself was not a notable occurrence, and the two passed each other only once in eleven days. The larger of the two Russian crafts, Kosmos-2542, had first entered the same orbital plane as USA-245 in late November, launched from a Soyuz rocket. The Russians, it seemed, were stalking an American spy satellite. Satellites in the same plane may on occasion pass within one hundred kilometers of one another but far less frequently. The Russian crafts had positioned themselves unusually close to the American, in a near-identical orbit, and they had synced their paths with USA-245-a classified, multibillion-dollar KH-11 satellite, equipped with imaging systems on par with the Hubble telescope-such that one of them came within twenty kilometers of it several times in a single day.
Seen from a backyard telescope, the satellites would have looked like small glimmers in the night, with light from the sun glinting off their alloyed coating as if off a distant windshield. One could have made out the rugged edges of mountains and the contours of lakes, our white atmosphere, bowed around the planet, darkening to blue and then black. In late January 2020, in an orbital belt around 640 kilometers above Earth, two unmanned Russian spacecrafts coasted through the sky toward USA-245, an American reconnaissance satellite.įrom this elevation a traveler would have seen the earth as a rounded slope of green and brown.
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