Is Russia Rehearsing An Attack In Orbit?

Two Russian satellites are drifting toward the orbit of a second US-registered radar satellite run by Finland’s ICEYE, weeks after a sibling spacecraft closed to within about 500 meters of the first, and one analyst says that earlier pass “looks like an attack rehearsal.”

Greg Gillinger, a senior space analyst at Integrity ISR and a former US Air Force intelligence officer who has tracked the satellites, told Reuters that Cosmos 2612 has since moved about 400 km (250 miles) away from ICEYE’s X36, and that two sibling Russian satellites are now drifting toward the path of X37, according to the Daily Mail’s account of the interview. COMSPOC, a US space-tracking firm, said the two were becoming increasingly well positioned to approach X37. Both ICEYE satellites are US-registered, according to public space-object catalogues.

Gillinger said such a close approach would not be needed for intelligence collection or electronic interference, which points to a test of kinetic attack-related capability. “This is the most aggressive posture I’ve seen Russia take in terms of threatening satellites from another nation,” he said.

How It Got Here

Russia launched six Cosmos satellites, 2609 through 2614, on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket in April. Between May 14 and 20, Cosmos 2610, 2611, 2612 and 2613 each raised their orbital inclination by 0.8 degrees, from 97.0 to 97.8, putting them in nearly the same orbital plane as X36, Gillinger wrote in a May analysis. He called a plane change that size rare in low Earth orbit because of the fuel it burns, and said X36, a roughly 90 kg satellite, likely lacks the fuel to dodge a co-orbital threat.

Cosmos 2612 began stalking X36 on Sept. 30, according to satellite tracker Marco Langbroek, as Breaking Defense reported. Between Oct. 15 and 19 it made a “deliberate series of maneuvers” and came within roughly 500 meters, LeoLabs said. “This is the most advanced and potentially dangerous uncooperative RPO we’ve observed,” LeoLabs vice president Adam Marsh said, using the term for a rendezvous and proximity operation. LeoLabs also admits its observations do not establish hostile intent, and that its distance estimates may be uncertain.

Washington And Moscow

As we previously reported, a US delegation adviser signaled to the UN First Committee on Oct. 21 that the maneuvers had military implications, and Moscow called the US claims absurd. 

US Under Secretary of State Thomas DiNanno said Cosmos 2612 was “intentionally maneuvering dangerously close to a commercial satellite” in conduct “consistent with on-orbit weapons operations.” 

Russia’s defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment, the Daily Mail’s account says.

Moscow has said commercial satellites that help Ukraine could be targets. In October 2022, Russian diplomat Konstantin Vorontsov said “quasi-civilian infrastructure may become a legitimate target for retaliation.” ICEYE’s radar constellation has been a key imagery source for Ukraine, and Ukraine’s military intelligence said in June 2024 that 38% of nearly 4,200 images from a donated ICEYE satellite were used to strike Russian targets, Gillinger’s analysis notes. The Daily Mail adds that Western officials have warned the Russian activity around ICEYE shows capabilities that could be used against commercial constellations, including SpaceX’s.

Not every expert reads it as a rehearsal. 

Germany’s space commander, Maj. Gen. Michael Traut, said close approaches like this can serve inspection, observation or interference, depending on the spacecraft, and “we must therefore consider the entire spectrum of possible effects, ranging from temporarily disrupting a satellite’s operations to permanently disabling it.” He cautioned that the ability to make the maneuvers is not itself evidence of an attack being prepared.

ICEYE’s US operations chief, Ann Stevens, said X36 “has been and will continue to be a productive satellite” and that the constellation is resilient to disruption. Washington has itself acknowledged putting weapons in orbit: as we noted, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said the US has deployed “on-orbit space control weapons.”

Russia has not said what its satellites are for, and Traut says public orbital data alone cannot determine their purpose.