Russian Military Satellite Cosmos 2612 Parks Within Five Kilometres of U.S.-Owned ICEYE-X36 Radar Satellite

Russia’s military satellite Cosmos 2612 has manoeuvred to within about five kilometres of ICEYE-X36, a commercial synthetic aperture radar satellite owned by the U.S. arm of the Finnish-founded imaging firm ICEYE, after an October 16 burn brought the two spacecraft alongside each other in low Earth orbit. Tracking data from the space surveillance company LeoLabs, reported by Axios on October 17, placed the Russian satellite less than five kilometres from its target by that afternoon, down from more than 320 kilometres a day earlier. LeoLabs assessed that the movement “appears to be a deliberate approach” and that “the behavior warrants continued monitoring,” while both the Pentagon and ICEYE declined to comment. The approach marks a significant escalation in Russia’s months-long pursuit of a Western satellite whose operator has supplied radar imagery to Ukraine since 2022.

The tracking firm’s account was matched independently by astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, whose own analysis of published orbital data showed Cosmos 2612 stationkeeping within five kilometres or less of ICEYE-X36 following the October 16 manoeuvre. McDowell stated: “To my knowledge this is the first LEO rendezvous of two active satellites where the owner of one of the sats did not give approval.” Cosmos 2612 was one of six satellites, designated Cosmos 2609 to Cosmos 2614, launched from Plesetsk in April. Five of them performed fuel-hungry plane changes within about a month to match the commercial satellite’s orbit, with Cosmos 2609 passing within 2.5 kilometres of it on May 26, according to a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies published on October 15. The planes drifted apart over the summer, before Cosmos 2612 began a two-week series of burns on September 30 that restored its alignment.

Ukraine’s dependence on commercial radar imaging has grown considerably since the war began, with the Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation having redirected around 600 million hryvnias raised from the public for Bayraktar drones to buy the full use of one ICEYE satellite and access to its wider constellation in August 2022. Radar satellites image through cloud and darkness, making them particularly valuable for a military that needs fresh targeting data for long-range operations such as the strike that hit Su-34 bombers at Borisoglebsk earlier this month. A Ukrainian official told Axios that the military uses ICEYE’s services but could not confirm whether ICEYE-X36 itself supports Ukrainian operations. The pressure in orbit comes as Russian activity against NATO members has intensified closer to Earth, with Romania having shot down two jet-powered Geran drones over the Black Sea only days ago.

Russia’s record of co-orbital weapons testing makes the approach difficult to dismiss as routine inspection. In July 2020, Cosmos 2543 released an object that travelled at up to 186 metres per second relative to its parent satellite, a test the U.S. and the United Kingdom publicly condemned. Aaron Brynildson, a space law professor at the University of Mississippi, noted that no legal limit governs how close satellites may come, although operators generally keep about six miles apart to limit the risk of collision when both spacecraft manoeuvre at once. Russia demonstrated a destructive capability on November 15, 2021, when a Nudol direct ascent missile destroyed the defunct Cosmos 1408 satellite and created more than 1,500 pieces of trackable debris.