Russian Defense Ministry Denies Satellite’s Disintegration in Orbit

MOSCOW. April 15 (Interfax-AVN) – The Russian Defense Ministry has denied reports that a Russian military satellite disintegrated in orbit.

“In response to reports in a number of media outlets alleging that the Cosmos-2421 spacecraft disintegrated, we would like to state that its planned flight program has been completed. After its onboard equipment was switched off, the satellite was taken out of operation in line with the established procedure,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The Cosmos-2421 satellite is in its own orbit, whose parameters comply with the planned ones,” the Defense Ministry said. The satellite is being tracked by Russian space monitoring system, it said.

“Three more space objects are traveling along orbits close to Cosmos-2421′s,” the Defense Ministry said. “One of them is a rocket’s stage and the other two are fragments of launch equipment,” it said.

A NASA website reported earlier that the Cosmos-2421 military satellite launched in June 2006 disintegrated and ceased to exist in March 2008. It said the satellite’s debris, including 65 relatively large chunks, were at altitudes varying from 400 to 420 kilometers.

The Cosmos-2421 satellite was launched on board a Soyuz-U rocket from the Baikonur space center on June 25, 2006. The satellite was launched for the Russian Navy and was part of the space reconnaissance and targeting system.

It was reported soon after the launch that the satellite’s solar panels did not deploy fully.

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