Kosmos 5 ( meaning ''Cosmos 5''), also known as 2MS #2 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 15 was a scientific research and technology demonstration

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

launched by the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in 1962. It was the fifth satellite to be designated under the Kosmos system, and the third spacecraft to be launched as part of the MS programme, after

Kosmos 2 Kosmos 2 ( meaning ''Cosmos 2''), also known as 1MS No.1 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 12 was a technology demonstration and a scientific research satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1962. It was the second satellite to be desig ...

and

Kosmos 3 Kosmos 3 ( meaning ''Cosmos 3''), also known as 2MS No.1 and occasionally in the West as Sputnik 13 was a scientific research and technology demonstration satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1962. Spacecraft It was the third satellite to ...

. Its primary missions were to develop systems for future satellites, and to record data about artificial

radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'' consisting of photons, such as radio waves, microwaves, infr ...

around the Earth.

Spacecraft

Kosmos 5 was a 2MS satellite, the second of two to be launched, following the first which was launched as

on 24 April 1962. The 2MS was the second of two types of MS satellite to be launched, following the first 1MS spacecraft which had been launched as

. Kosmos 5 was the penultimate MS satellite to be launched, and the last to successfully reach orbit. The last launch attempt, of a 1MS satellite, occurred on 25 October 1962, and failed to reach orbit. It had a mass of 280 kg.

Mission

It was launched aboard

Kosmos-2I The Kosmos (also spelled Cosmos, Russian: ) rockets were a series of Soviet and subsequently Russian rockets, derived from the R-12 and R-14 missiles, the best known of which is the Kosmos-3M, which has made over 440 launches. The Kosmos fami ...

63S1 s/n 3LK. It was the sixth flight of the Kosmos-2I, and the fourth to successfully reach orbit. The launch was conducted from Mayak-2 at

Kapustin Yar Kapustin Yar () is a Russian military training area and a rocket launch complex in Astrakhan Oblast, about 100 km east of Volgograd. It was established by the Soviet Union on 13 May 1946. In the beginning, Kapustin Yar used technology, material ...

, and occurred at 03:07:00 GMT on 28 May 1962. Kosmos 5 was placed into a

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

with a

perigee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides perta ...

of , an

apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides perta ...

of , an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

of 49.1°, and an

orbital period The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets ...

of 102.8 minutes. It decayed on 2 May 1963, after nearly a year in orbit. Kosmos 5 was among several satellites inadvertently damaged or destroyed by the

Starfish Prime Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States, a joint effort of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Defense Atomic Support Agency. It was launched from Johnston Atoll on July 9, 1962, and was the large ...

high-altitude nuclear test on 9 July 1962 and subsequent

radiation belt The Van Allen radiation belt is a zone of energetic charged particles, most of which originate from the solar wind, that are captured by and held around a planet by that planet's magnetosphere. Earth has two such belts, and sometimes others ma ...

References

Spacecraft launched in 1962 1962 in the Soviet Union Kosmos 0005 Spacecraft which reentered in 1963 {{USSR-spacecraft-stub

Spacecraft

Mission

See also

References