Angara rocket launch – a week later

For the league of laziness: instead of the press service of Roscosmos, you have to read the foreign press, which, of course, denigrates and belittles the successes. Decreases from 35,786 km to 197 km, to be more precise.

For this article, I ask you to make a separate, special thanks to all those who caught up in the comments to the initially neutral post The launch of the Angara-A5 rocket took place and freshly defrosted bots with 1 (one) comment since 2011, and new bots with the same 1 (one) ) comment from May 15, 2023, and just bots – minus not only uncomfortablebut also not enthusiastic enough.

What was stated, quote:

The rocket launch trajectory is standard with a deviation of 51.7, Denis Berg, deputy head of the department for calculation work and flight tasks of the Salyut design bureau, said earlier. The rocket will launch a simulated payload into a near geostationary orbit. The orbital altitude is 450 km, which is slightly higher than standard…
Roscosmos reported that the main task of the first launch of the Angara-A5 rocket was fully completed: the Orion upper stage delivered the test payload into orbit. According to the state corporation, there was no provision for separating the test payload from the upper stage. Next, the Orion upper stage with a test payload will be carried into storage orbit. Roscosmos also clarified that the Orion upper stage delivered the small Gagarinets satellite into low Earth orbit.

What do we have?
The launch of the rocket itself, of course, took place – the rocket left the launch pad. The launch was intact, the engines of the first and second stages of the RD-170 family (beginning of development in 1976, for the RN Energia project) – RD-191, worked normally.
Then something incomprehensible begins, but here all the complaints are against the press service of Roscosmos, who are too lazy to write a few extra letters in the presentation.
In the presentation, the Angara is described as universal side modules (actually the first stage) with RD-191, plus a central block (actually the second stage) with RD-191, then a third stage with RD-0124A. An accelerating block of the DM-03 family should have been installed on top of them, but… Instead, someone decided to confuse everyone, and the new block is called “Orion”. There is nothing special about this; there were already named blocks – for example, 14С48 (“Perseus”). But something went wrong with Perseus, quote:

The Russian Angara-A5 heavy rocket was launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region December 27, 2021. Unlike the three previous launches of rockets of this family, there was the use of a new, never before used Perseus upper stage… According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), object 50505/2021- appeared in low Earth orbit at an altitude of 179 × 201 km 133A, whose orbital elements correspond to the launch time of Angara-A5. ..
Although the three stages of the rocket itself performed normally, the upper stage was abnormal from the very beginning. The second firing of its engines never happened, and the unit “stuck” in an elongated orbit with a low point of 179 kilometers and a high point of 201 kilometers. The atmosphere at this altitude, although very rarefied, is much denser than in the ISS orbit. Therefore, just ten days after being launched there, the upper stage itself began to sharply lose altitude and entered the dense layers of the planet’s atmosphere.
According to public data from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the facility IPM 3/PERSEY On January 5 (2022) it began to rapidly lose the altitude of its off-design orbit. At ten o'clock in the morning Moscow time it had an altitude of 150 kilometers, and after midnight Moscow time it dropped below 100 kilometers (the generally accepted boundary of outer space). Source: The Perseus upper stage, launched by the recent Angara launch, failed to cope with the task and fell to Earth

What can I say – well, it happens.
At the time of launch, the parameters of Perseus were APOGEE 200.8 km, PERIGEE 178.8 km PERIOD 88.3 min INCLINATION 63.4 deg (in the quote above – 179 × 201)
with estimated weight and dimensions:
DRY MASS (KG): 5180 kg (estimated), with up to 18,700 kg propellant
MAIN BODY: Cylinder + conical mass simulator; 3.7 m diameter by ~ 10 m length
according to page 677 of the reference book History of On-orbit Satellite Fragmentations, 16th Edition
When returning to the atmosphere, it was in orbit with the following parameters:
perigee height: 108 km \ apogee height: 118 km (source)
that is, approximately 23 tons descend from an altitude of approximately 200 kilometers in approximately 10 days.

Orion Upper Stage – this, according to open sources, is the legacy of 14S48 (“Perseus”), or the legacy of 14S49, or variants on the theme of the Perseus-KV ROC. The block is half secret, quote:

The acceptance certificate for the Orion R&D stage, available to the agency, notes that RSC Energia handed over the preliminary design for the DM-03 block for Vostochny on December 12, 2019. Moreover, according to the statement of execution of the contract concluded with Roscosmos in November 2016, the company had to do this by September 30, 2018. Such a delay, according to the decision of the Moscow Arbitration Court in the claim of Roscosmos against RSC Energia, was due to the fact that for a long time Roscosmos was unable to agree with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the use of scientific, technical and technological reserves in the Orion R&D on the design of upper stages created according to the Perseus-KV design and development work. Source – RIA Novosti The reason for the late delivery of the upper stage project for Angara has been named”

That is, the block is almost the same just smaller and different quote:

In the future, according to the Russian Federal Space Program for 2016-2025, a similar complex (Orion R&D) will be built at the Vostochny Cosmodrome. According to the agreement with the lead developer of upper stages of the DM type – PJSC RSC Energia, Krasmash needs to manufacture a tank suspension truss “O” for a mock-up of the upper stage for static testing, as well as the base module RB 14S48 for vibration strength tests and two flight products. Source – Russia is creating a new upper stage for the Angara-A5 and heavy missiles

With the block it became a little clearer, what about the removal? Stated, quote:

Today, the Orion upper stage, launched by the first Angara-A5 launch vehicle from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, delivered to geostationary orbit test payload. Sources – official website of Roscosmos reprint Interfax

What we have regarding the NORAD slander – which can be viewed on n2yo.com, with a selection by launch country. CIS – COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES

We have something interesting, there is no satellite there. That's it, you can shout AA WE ARE EVERYONE LYING. Of course you can, who will forbid it. BUT.
If you follow the path BROWSE SATELLITES BY LAUNCH DATE – Launches of April 2024,
and search by launch date (there is no sorting), you can see 4 objects with a launch on April 11, 2024.
Note: judging by the forum, the data on n2yo appeared on April 14, but the cheer-screaming canned goods and accounts that registered just to say “hurray” are not so interesting anymore, are they?

The objects are as follows:
WSF-M, NORAD ID: 59481Source: United States (US) – not that

OBJECT B: NORAD ID: 59480 ,Int'l Code: 2024-069B
Perigee: 193.2 km
Apogee: 385.5 km
Inclination: 51.7°
Period: 90.2 minutes, Semi major axis: 6660 km, RCS: Unknown, Launch date: April 11, 2024, Source: Commonwealth of Independent States (former USSR) (CIS), Launch site: VOSTOCHNY COSMODROME (VOSTO)
In the comments to the original news there was data on Gagarinets from Orbitron, without indications (or my eyes are old from watching anime) of orbital parameters. According to the site in-the-sky.orgthen Gagarinets – GAGARINETS – ID COSPAR ID 2024-069B

OBJECT C, NORAD ID: 59482, Int'l Code: 2024-069C
Perigee: 183.8 km
Apogee: 313.2 km
Inclination: 51.7 ° , Period: 89.3 minutes , Semi major axis: 6619 km , RCS: Unknown , Launch date: April 11, 2024, Source: Commonwealth of Independent States (former USSR) (CIS), Launch site: VOSTOCHNY COSMODROME (VOSTO )

OBJECT D: NORAD ID: 59509, Int'l Code: 2024-069D
Perigee: 196.6 km
Apogee: 494.9 km
Inclination: 51.5 °, Period: 91.3 minutes, Semi major axis: 6716 km, RCS: Unknown, Launch date: April 11, 2024, Source: Commonwealth of Independent States (former USSR) (CIS), Launch site: VOSTOCHNY COSMODROME (VOSTO )

in-the-sky.org adds another OBJECT A – 2024-069A. The best minds from the news forum are struggling with the riddle of SHTOET in the thread Inseparable HMM spacecraft, Gagarinets, mock-up of small spacecraft – Angara-A5/Orion – Vostochny 1A – 04/11/2024 12:00 UHF starting from page 38 to page 49.

What can I say.
According to some other sources, on Gagarinets (considering that it is 59480), there may have been a GT-50 ionizer – although where would they get so much electricity (210 watts), but. Perigee: 193.2 km \ Apogee: 385.5 km says that he won’t live very long anyway.
OBJECT CNORAD ID: 59482 Perigee: 183.8 km \ Apogee: 313.2 km – falls the fastest, it looks like something is very light and actively braking, or deliberately braking. Third stage?

What remains is OBJECT D: NORAD ID: 59509 (197\495 km). It seems that it slows down slowest of all – which means it is heavy .. with an orbit somewhat far from geostationary, as well as from sun-synchronous. Well, let's see during the May holidays what will change in the orbital parameters of all three. It would be nice to search and pull up historical data for the week, but I'm too lazy.