Russia Launches, Loses, Finds Military Satellite

eldavojohn writes "According to Interfax reports, a GEO-IK-2 spacecraft launched yesterday from Plesetsk went missing hours after launch. Its intended purpose is to measure specific curvature of the Earth to aid Russia's military in building excellent 3D maps. Early today, Russia announced that they found it, but unfortunately it's in the wrong orbit. China's state media called the launch 'successful.' Reuters reminds us of a GLONASS mishap, which resulted in Medvedev firing two top space officials."

Comments

Technological independence

[mangu]

FTFA:

The incident follows the loss of three GLONASS navigation satellites that crashed into the sea in December provoking outrage from the Kremlin, which is trying to build Russian technological independence.

Ironic, coming from the country that launched the first artificial satellite.

Re:Technological independence

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but the first man in orbit, first woman in orbit, space rendez-vous, first pictures of the dark side of the moon, first automated sample return from the moon, etc... Venus probes, you name it. I like Russians.

Re:Technological independence

[sznupi]

Probably mostly an "interpretation" added by "reporting"...

And the partial failure is of Rockot. Considering those launch vehicles are basically inexpensive, surplus, repurposed ICBMs - they still have quite decent success ratio.

Re:Technological independence

[mangu]

did someone else launch a natural satellite?

Yes

Re:Technological independence

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a picture of the dark side of the moon .

Re:Technological independence

[guruevi]

The Russians did a lot of space exploring. Too bad the Soviet Union was run the way it was. If it had been more democratic or a more social form of communism it would've still been kicking the US'es butt. The only extraordinary thing the US did accomplish in it's space program was put a man on the moon first but then it kinda petered off into a more corporate weapon-based space program vs. the nationalistic science-based space program of the USSR. The USSR was first in a lot of things including going bankrupt because of it's uncontrolled spending in that age.

Re:Technological independence

[TheRaven64]

I think the new-look Slashdot may be messing up threads. Are you talking about the USSR or the USA?

Re:Technological independence

[shutdown -p now]

Ironic, coming from the country that launched the first artificial satellite.

The country that launched the first artificial satellite doesn't exist anymore.

(as a point of comparison, USSR at the time of dissolution had a population of ~290 million; Russia, immediately after the dissolution, had a population of ~150 million)

Re:Measurements

[msauve]

Russia never used imperial units ("imperial" normally meaning customary British imperial), and the traditional Russian units (arshins, etc.) haven't been used for a long time. The Soviets went metric in 1924.

It's not their fault

[dremon]

Blessing just didn't work

Must be true

[necro81]

China's state media called the launch 'successful.'

Well, if Chinese state media reports it, it must be true!

Re:3D maps... well, that's ambitious.

[SockPuppetOfTheWeek]

If that was true, GPS would be horribly broken and could never work.