Russia and Imagery Intelligence

Soviet RECSAT Program Soviet RECSAT 1962-1971 Soviet RECSAT 1971-1975 Soviet RECSAT 1981-1987 Other RECSAT Programs 1981-1987 Optical 1st. & 2nd. Generation 3rd Gen 4th Gen - Yantar / Kobalt 4th Gen - Kometa 5th Gen - Yantar / Neman 6th Gen - Orlets-1 / Don 7th Gen - Orlets-2 / Yenisei 8th Gen - 14F137 Persona 9th Gen - 14F156 Razdan Bars-M 14F148 EMKA Neutron 14F01 Radar Almaz

Soviet space reconnaissance as a whole consisted of three systems: the Legend system of naval space reconnaissance and target designation (adopted in 1978), the Tselina series of radio reconnaissance satellites (the first launched in 1967), as well as several series of photographing spy satellites ("Zenith", "Yantar" and "Orlets" of various modifications, were launched from the beginning of the 1960s). The generic problem of all Soviet and then Russian satellites was a short service life. For photographing satellites, it was limited to stocks of photographic film and ranged from several days to several months. But even for the Tselina devices of the latest modifications, it did not exceed three years - during this period, electronics failed due to cosmic radiation.

From 2001 to 2008, a time of particularly rapid development of electronic systems and satellite weapons, the Russian armed forces did not have specialized optical-electronic reconnaissance satellites in orbit at all. The Soviet Yantar satellites, which transmitted information to the ground using film capsules, ceased to exist in May 2001. The development of new devices, the third generation, “Persona” class, was initially delayed for a long time. And then, after being launched into orbit, they were not immediately able to reach the specified parameters, and one satellite was lost. Things were better with the remaining two and by 2023 they were still transmitting the necessary information to the ground. But their service life, designed for seven years, had long expired.

By 2022 the Russian constellation of military and dual-use satellites had about a hundred devices. The database compilers formally classify 19 of them as remote sensing satellites (both in the optical and radio ranges), but in reality only a part of them can be classified as reconnaissance. These are two Bars-M satellites, one Condor, five Lotus-type satellites, one Pion-NKS, two Persona satellites. "Kondor" is a small radar satellite with rather low resolution (no more than one square meter per pixel). Satellites "Bars-M", launched in 2015-2016, also have a resolution of over 1 meter per pixel and were conceived primarily for military cartography. Six Bars were built, but only two were in orbit, and both, apparently, had already exceeded the warranty period. The remaining satellites are just the main "military spies". "Lotus" and "Peony" make up the "Liana" system, which replaced the Soviet "Legend". "Persons" are the only optical "eyes" of Russia, but they can go blind at any moment.

Russia had two Persona military optical reconnaissance satellites in orbit. They were launched in 2013-2015. It is not known exactly what the period of active work laid down by their manufacturer is, though it is probably 5-7 years. Quite probably, they have already exceeded this deadline and may fail at any moment. Russia also had no good civilian satellites for remote sensing of the Earth (ERS) in orbit either. The last of the Resurs-P satellites, the civilian version of Persona, failed in December 2021,

On April 4, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, released a high-resolution satellite image showing the NATO headquarters, and wrote: "Guys, we are watching you. Keep in mind." The picture, however, says that it was taken by the Resurs-P satellite two years ago, on March 28, 2020. In the next post, Rogozin responds to a commentator's request to show "more up-to-date pictures": "I can't. All data from the areas of the special military operation are transmitted in real time to our military. And to no one else."

The “Hrazdan” system, which was supposed to replace “Persona”, began to be developed at the very least in 2014. Unlike all previous systems for this purpose, the diameter of the main optical mirror of the Razdan reached 2.4 meters (for comparison, the Persona has 1 meter), like the best similar US strategic reconnaissance satellites.

Imagery is the representation of objects reproduced electronically or by optical means on film, electronic display devices or other media. Imagery, along with the graphical, geospatial, and textual intelligence products derived from it, is an increasingly critical element in the planning and decisionmaking efforts of commanders and supporting staffs at all echelons. Much of the imagery available to the commander requires detailed analysis by highly trained specialists to fully exploit its value. Imagery and imagery-related information — when processed, exploited, analyzed, and fused with other intelligence information — results in imagery intelligence (IMINT).

IMINT is an extremely valuable part of intelligence. IMINT provides concrete, detailed, and precise information on the location and physical characteristics of both the threat and the environment. It is the primary source of information concerning key terrain features, installations, and infrastructure used to build detailed intelligence studies, reports, and target materials. Order of battle (OOB) analysis, enemy courses of action assessments, development of target intelligence, and battle damage assessment (BDA) are intelligence functions that rely heavily upon IMINT.

The major limitations of IMINT are the time required to task, collect, process, analyze, and disseminate the imagery product; the detailed planning and coordination required to ensure the collected imagery is received in time to impact the decisionmaking process; and the requirement for considerable assets in personnel, equipment, and communications connectivity to conduct IMINT operations. Also, imagery operations can be hampered by weather; enemy air defense capability; and enemy camouflage, cover, concealment and deception activities.

Between 1962 and 1994 the USSR/Russian Federation placed more than 800 photo reconnaissance spacecraft into Earth orbit on dedicated military missions (another 25 spacecraft were lost in launch failures). These missions have ranged in length from only a few days to more than 400 days, a record set by Kosmos 2267 in 1994. Only seven dedicated military photo recons were launched during each of 1993 and 1994. However, on average more than two spacecraft were operational during the entire period, and no observation gaps appeared. Declassified photographs with resolutions of 2-30 m can now be purchased commercially, while resolutions on the order of one-third meter have been acknowledged.

Since the first Soviet photo spacecraft was successfully orbited (Kosmos 4 in 1962), a variety of specialized spacecraft have been developed. Four basic classes of the 6-7 metric-ton photo recons were operational, and a possible new generation spacecraft began flight testing in the second half of 1994. All such spacecraft were launched by the Soyuz-U/U2 launch vehicle from either the Baikonur or Plesetsk Cosmodromes. Whereas most spacecraft physically return film to Earth for development and processing, some, longer duration spacecraft possess either digital transmission or dual transmission/capsule capabilities.

Unlike many satellites designed to photograph the Earth, Russian photo recons fly in posigrade (normally 63 degree-83 degree) orbits rather than sun-synchronous trajectories. Consequently, when altitude restoration maneuvers are made every 7-10 days, the satellite's argument of perigee is normally adjusted to keep perigee phased with acceptable lighting conditions. For example, during a typical 2-month mission, the argument of perigee will be rotated progressively from ascending passes (first month) to descending passes (second month). Fifth-generation satellites are an exception with arguments of perigee normally maintained between 80 degrees and 110 degrees.

A reconnaissance mission is undertaken to obtain, by visual observation or other detection methods, information about the activities and resources of an enemy or potential enemy, or to secure data concerning the meteorological, hydrographic, or geographic characteristics of a particular area.

Broad Area Coverage, Broad Area Search, and Directed Search Area imaging strategies provide a reconnaissance capability to cover large areas of the earth’s surface. These techniques are especially suited for providing large area coverage for baseline studies of terrain and lines of communication. On the negative side, they take extended time to produce large format mosaic prints, are normally produced at a low National Imagery Interpretation Rating Scale (NIIRS) rating, and possess imagery quality of only fair to poor.

Broad area coverage (BAC), also known as broad area search (BAS), are missions entailing imagery coverage of large areas of the earth’s surface that enable analysis of a greater amount of area and provide the imagery needed for the creation of large area mosaics. Directed search area (DSA) imagery missions identify a geographic region in the shape of a polygon that may contain from 3 to 24 corner points with latitude and longitude coordinates. This gives intelligence planners the flexibility to tailor intelligence collection and other operations plans to meet commanders’ needs.

During the 2022 Ukraine war, problems with target designation and orientation on the ground could have been solved by up-to-date high-resolution satellite images - the same ones that the United States can quickly receive and which they may share with Ukrainian intelligence. The unfortunate thing is that Russia has only a few optical surveillance satellites left, and even those are close to the end of their service life - and the creation and launch of new ones is hampered by sanctions imposed on Russian companies since the annexation of Crimea and the 2014 war in the Donbass. High-quality and promptly obtained satellite images could help Russia with an assessment of the damage caused by its strikes.

Optical scouts Persona, which are about to fail, should be replaced by Razbeg and Razdan satellites in the coming years - it will be very difficult to build them under the new sanctions conditions. "The sanctions that were imposed against Russia after the start of the war with Ukraine (including new restrictions on the export of high-tech products) will not help to reduce the gap in the development of satellite technologies between Russia and Western countries. However, the Russian lag in this area was predetermined even previous restrictive measures imposed on Russia in 2014. These sanctions explain why many Russian satellite launches have been delayed for so long, and the Russian military orbital constellation is in its infancy,” said Bart Hendrix.