Neman Yantar-4KS1M Fifth Generation Digital Recons

The Russian Defense Ministry has a system for optical-electronic reconnaissance - Yantar-4KS1M satellite that was designated Neman after being adopted for service. The data from it is returned via Geizer transmitter satellites to ground controllers in almost real time. The lifetime of such satellites is about one year. However, so far there have been no reports that images from Neman would be offered for commercial use.

The fifth-generation, digital transmission photo recons debuted in 1982 with the flight of Kosmos 1426. With a reported resolution of at least 2 m, these spacecraft are normally launched once or twice per year from the Baikonur Cosmodrome into inclinations of 64.9 degrees or 70.4 degrees. After the initial mission of 67 days, the fifth generation photo recons quickly extended their normal operational lifetimes to 170-260 days. Beginning in 1992, mission durations increased markedly, culminating in the 418-dayflight of Kosmos 2267 (5 November 1993). Data transmissions can apparently be made directly to special ground stations or relayed via geosynchronous satellites of the Geyser class (References 40-45). The fifth-generation spacecraft may resemble the civilian Resurs-Spektr spacecraft.

Kosmos 2267 was the only fifth-generation photo recon launched in 1993, having been launched about six weeks before its predecessor, Kosmos 2223, finished its mission. Kosmos 2267 was joined on 28 April 1994 by Kosmos 2280. For the next eight months, the pair worked together in orbital planes 90 degrees apart, often alternating their orbital maneuvers at roughly 20-day intervals. Kosmos 2267 finally was deorbited over the Pacific Ocean on 28 December 1994, only to be followed the next day by the next in the series, Kosmos 2305 (Reference 45).

Namesake

The Neman [aka Nemunas, Nyoman, Niemen or Memel] a major Eastern European river, rising in Belarus and flowing through Lithuania before draining into the Curonian Lagoon, and then into the Baltic Sea at Klaipeda. It begins at the confluence of two smaller tributaries about 15 kilometers (9 mi) southwest of the town of Uzda in central Belarus, and about 55 km (34 mi) southwest of Minsk. In its lower reaches it forms the border between Lithuania and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast. It also, very briefly, forms part of the border between Lithuania and Belarus. The fourteenth-largest river in Europe, the largest in Lithuania, and the third-largest in Belarus, the Neman is navigable for most of its 900 km (560 mi) length.