Kosmos 580

Kosmos 580 (Russian: Космос 580 meaning Cosmos 580), known before launch as DS-P1-Yu No.59, was a Soviet satellite which was launched in 1973 as part of the Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik programme. It was a 400-kilogram (880 lb) spacecraft, which was built by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, and was used as a radar calibration target for anti-ballistic missile tests.^[1]

Kosmos 580 was successfully launched into low Earth orbit at 11:24:55 UTC on 22 August 1973.^[2] The launch took place from Site 133/1 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome,^[3] and used a Kosmos-2I 63SM carrier rocket. Upon reaching orbit, the satellite was assigned its Kosmos designation, and received the International Designator 1973-057A.^[4] The North American Aerospace Defense Command assigned it the catalogue number 06793.

Kosmos 580 was the sixty-fourth of seventy nine DS-P1-Yu satellites to be launched,^[1] and the fifty-eighth of seventy two to successfully reach orbit.^[5] It was operated in an orbit with a perigee of 268 kilometres (167 mi), an apogee of 472 kilometres (293 mi), 71 degrees of inclination, and an orbital period of 91.9 minutes.^[6] It remained in orbit until it decayed and reentered the atmosphere on 1 April 1974.^[6]

See also

• 1973 in spaceflight

References