OrbitalFocus

Recent NRO Launches

Payload descriptions and some orbit details available

L-192
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#074

L-174
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#077

Mission Update

Chinese Space Station

The small sat released on Apr 7 (63523, 2021-035E)
made a thruster firing Apr 16 with no significant effect on orbit height

Behaviour is similar to 62300/035D that was in orbit between 2024 Dec 7 and 2025 Apr 7

orbitalfocus.uk/2021#63523

Mission Update

Chinese Space Station

Released a small object on Apr 7 (63523, 2021-035E)
orbitalfocus.uk/2021#035

May be similar to 62300/035D released 2024 Dec 7 - it re-entered the same day the new item appeared (Space-Track re-entry date of April 10 is incorrect)

Mission Update

MEV 1 (44625, 2019-067B)

Northrop Grumman completed contract to provide 5 yrs support to Intelsat 901

Moved to graveyard orbit Mar 31 to release Intelsat

Will return to GEO to take over station keeping and pointing of another Intelsat

orbitalfocus.uk/2019#44625

Mission Update

Cosmos 2581 etc

2025-026C, one of the two parts of Cosmos 2583, made a very small thruster firing earlier today

Effect on orbit height was insignificant

026A & 026B continue to orbit together within a couple of hundred metres of each other

Launch Advisory

4x second generation internet connectivity test satellites
Apr 1, 04:00 UTC
CZ 2D
Jiuquan SC

450 km orbit, lower than the 1000 km of earlier (presumably gen 1) missions
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#067

Mission Update

Cosmos 2581 etc

026A & B still orbiting in tandem, with B a few metres ahead and doing the station keeping

026C & D are 3000+ km ahead with no orbit changes since separating from each other, not obvious if both are operational satellites
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Mission Update

Shijian 25

China's satellite servicing vehicle has been sitting at 120° east since launch in January
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#002

Potential client, Shijian 21, continues slow eastward drift, currently near 143° east
orbitalfocus.uk/2021#094

Could there be a problem?

Mission Update

USA 498

Payload on the Falcon 9 launch on Mar 24

The amateur observing community is now tracking it in an orbit close to my initial estimate, see the comparison:
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#060

Mission Update

USA 498
NRO L-69 mission

Space-Track has catalogued a single satellite

Estimated orbit added to the Orbital Focus table based on timing of visual observations of the Falcon 9 from Europe and the location of the Falcon 9 re-entry zone

orbitalfocus.uk/2025#060

Visual sightings from Europe at ~20:00 UTC of propellant venting after re-entry firing of Falcon 9

Confirms near 65° inclination and demise of F9 above southern Indian Ocean ~20:50 UTC

Also suggests orbit height above 1000 km - possible NOSS mission

orbitalfocus.uk/2025#060

Launch Advisory

NRO sat
Mar 24, 17:48 UTC
Falcon 9
CCSFS

Upper stage firing includes an inclination change

First stage aimed at ~50° inclination but stage 2 re-entry zone indicates final orbit ~65° incl

Launch time for Mar 25 is 14 min earlier, also consistent with ~65°

Mission Update

Cosmos 2581 etc

C2582 still harassing 2581

When 026F separated from C2583, their orbits were raised and lowered from the original by similar amounts, suggests similar masses and that a spring mechanism was involved (Newton's third law)

orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Mission Update

Cosmos 2581, etc

Object, so far unidentified, was released from Cosmos 2583 on Mar 18 at about 20:15 UTC

C2581 & 2582 continue to orbit together with 2582 making the station keeping effort

Could this be a space weapon system?

orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Mission Update

TJS 15

Interesting events in GEO - apparently two payloads, both have changed orbit

My take on it
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#045

Shaping up to be similar to the TJS 3 mission
orbitalfocus.uk/2018#110

Intriguingly, TJS 3 departed its GEO station March 17

Launch Advisory

3x Rodnik store/dump comsats?
Mar 16, 10:50 UTC
Angara 1.2
Plesetsk

Orbit details available
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#054

Will be given 'Cosmos' numbers

Orbit plane matches an earlier group of Rodnik sats, launched in 2015
orbitalfocus.uk/2015#050

Cosmos 2581 - 2583

C2581 and C2582 are still orbiting close to each other but not flying in formation

C2583 has shown its first sign of life with a very small orbit tweak - maybe a thruster test, it continues to move further ahead of the other two

orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Space-Track not doing very well today:

1 - Dragon Crew 10 has been given an ISS Designation - 1998-067XH instead of 2025-049A

2 - 2025-050B has been named as "ELECTRON KICK STAGE" (ie the third stage) where it is actually the second stage

orbitalfocus.uk/2025#049

Mission Update

Cosmos 2581, etc

Cosmos 2581 & 2582 have near-enough matched orbits as of Mar 9, running in tandem with C2582 less than 20 km in the lead

At the same time C2583 was about 230 km in front of C2581 with the gap increasing by ~100 km/day
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Correction Cosmos 2583

Mission Update

USSF/Boeing X-37B orbiting as USA 349 on Mission OTV 7

Landed at Vandenberg SFB earlier today
orbitalfocus.uk/2023#210

Mission Updates

Roscosmos says third object on 2025-026 launch is Cosmos 2851 (thanks to Bart Hendrickx)
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Orbit of CSO 3 satellite from Mar 6 Ariane launch is classified secret, Ariane 6 upper stage was caused to re-enter
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#044

Mission Update

Shijian 25 - China's GEO satellite servicing mission

Still sitting at 120° east where it arrived 7 weeks ago
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#002

Shijian 21, its potential client, is currently at 146° east, drifting slowly eastwards at ~0.1°/day,
orbitalfocus.uk/2021#094

Sats with orbital pairings

1 - USA 485 & 486, a couple of Starshields running along together
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#014

2 - Cosmos 2581 & 2582, also co-orbiting
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Heads Up…

Nav warnings for China & Indian Ocean pointed to launch from Jiuquan Mar 1 at ~09:59 UTC, possibly one of the commercial launchers rather than CZ

Ground track points to 81° inclination, a new one for China

Neither replacement warnings nor news of failure issued yet

Quote from CEO of AstroForge - owner of Odin asteroid mission, make of it what you will

"Because we are so close on ephemeris, there is a non-zero chance that it [thruster firing] will actually put us on a course to the asteroid..."

AstroForge feed
https://www.astroforge.com/updates/odin-learnings

In the past, if Space-Track tagged a rocket stage initially as the 'A' object, the data stream would switch between objects because its system required 'A' to be a payload

The restriction seems to have been lifted - see 2025-028, 033 & 041
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#028

Mission Update

Cosmos 2581, etc

They way in which the orbit of 2025-206C is evolving is more characteristic of a debris item (such as a payload adaptor for the two sats)

Entries updated accordingly
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

It could still be a low-density sat

Cosmos 2577 & 2578
orbitalfocus.uk/2024#166

They kept station (<300 km) throughout three months of orbit decay until C2578 started to maintain height at ~295 km

C2577 did not manoeuvre - possible failure but not necessarily so - it re-entered naturally on Feb 26

Mission Update

Cosmos 2581, etc

C2581 & 2582 continue to orbit in tandem, less than 10 km from each other
orbitalfocus.uk/2025#026

Decay rate of C2581 orbit has always been slightly the higher of the two

2025-026C orbit continues to decay at a greater rate than the other two