Discussion
Great paper on wide-area transient interference,from a space-based source causing up to 10-dB GNSS degradation across Europe since 2019 in the important L1 band, from Russian early warning satellites in Molniya (“lightning”) orbits.
Cosmos 2546 (NORAD ID 45608) was identified with high confidence as one source of the interference
📄: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2606.03673
🎬: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz23G_UXCGA
Russia just performed another orbital manœuvre to get even closer to an ICEYE Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite used by Ukraine.
Bart Hendrickx: “In the past two days or so, Cosmos-2612 has made a further orbit adjustment which has now brought it in the immediate vicinity of the ICEYE satellite.
According to the latest TLE sets, the Russian satellite is now just about 1.5 km from ICEYE and getting closer.”
https://www.satobs.org/seesat/Oct-2026/0055.html
@fj @SteveBellovin they're trying to do Moonraker but we're going to get Kessler instead
Let’s hope it’s a jammer and not a kinetic interceptor.
In its war on Ukraine, Russia seems to be pushing the world closer to #KesslerSyndrome
@fj Read the original article. "Now What: Cosmos 2612 trails ICEYE X36 by ~475km. That it is now virtually co-planar is the primary concern. After matching X36’s orbital plane, closing the in-track gap can be done quickly and requires little fuel. As things stand now, Cosmos 2612 is ~1km lower than ICEYE X36 and slowly catching up."
Orbital mechanics are much more complex than navigating on the surface of the earth.
🛰️ 📍🔒Really nice demonstration of the feasibility to use Galileo Signal Authentication Service (SAS) to authenticate GNSS timing.
The paper authors used a Septentrio engineering firmware taking small RF snapshots and using only the E6-C pseudorange, with an RMS error of 20 ns.
@fj I guess we will see what Russia does with their stalking satellites. It is possible that they could passively receive the same radar data that the ICEYE satellite is receiving and figure out what the Ukrainians are looking at.
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Note that it’s not the only Cosmos satellite that's doing nasty stuff.
Russia recently burned a lot of fuel from at least 4 of its 6 Cosmos satellites doing plane maneuvers to get into co-planar orbits with the Finnish ICEYE SAR satellite ICEYE-X36 (59103) that is used by Ukraine for targeting.
What Russia is planning is unclear.
https://integrityisr.com/is-russia-maneuvering-to-threaten-an-iceye-satellite/