Sputnik 41 (, ), also known as Sputnik Jr 2 and Radio Sputnik 18 (RS-18),
was a
Franco-Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
n
amateur radio satellite which was launched in 1998 to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the
Aéro-Club de France, and the forty-first anniversary of the launch of
Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite. A
one-third scale model of Sputnik 1, Sputnik 41 was deployed from the
Mir space station
A space station (or orbital station) is a spacecraft which remains orbital spaceflight, in orbit and human spaceflight, hosts humans for extended periods of time. It therefore is an artificial satellite featuring space habitat (facility), habitat ...
on 10 November 1998.
Sputnik 41 was launched aboard
Progress M-40 at 04:14 UTC on 25 October 1998, along with supplies for Mir and the
Znamya-2.5 reflector experiment.
A
Soyuz-U carrier rocket placed the spacecraft into orbit, flying from
Site 1/5 at the
Baikonur Cosmodrome
The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport operated by Russia within Kazakhstan. Located in the Kazakh city of Baikonur, it is the largest operational space launch facility in terms of area. All Russian Human spaceflight, crewed spaceflights are l ...
in
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...
: the same launch pad used by Sputnik 1.
Progress M-40 docked to Mir on 27 October,
and the satellite was transferred to the space station. At about 19:30 UTC on 10 November,
during an
extra-vehicular activity, Sputnik 41 was deployed by cosmonauts
Gennady Padalka and
Sergei Avdeyev.
On 24 November, a fortnight after deployment, Sputnik 41 was in 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 of , an apogee of , an inclination of 51.6 degrees, and a period of 91.44 minutes.
The satellite was given the
International Designator 1998-062C and was
catalogued by the
United States Space Command
United States Space Command (USSPACECOM or SPACECOM) is a unified combatant command of the United States Department of Defense, responsible for military operations in outer space, specifically all operations 100 kilometers (62 miles) and greater ...
as 25533. Having ceased operations on 11 December 1998 after its batteries expired, Sputnik 41 decayed from orbit on 11 January 1999.
Sputnik 41 was originally intended to be built aboard Mir, based on a satellite launched in October 1997 as a backup for
Sputnik 40. That spacecraft had been stored aboard the space station for a year after the successful deployment of Sputnik 40, and it was intended that it would be fitted with upgraded electronics and deployed. By the time of launch, the project had grown to involve a complete satellite, and the Sputnik 40 backup was never deployed.
References
{{Radio Sputnik
Spacecraft launched in 1998
Sputnik