Kosmos 601

Kosmos 601 (Russian: Космос 601 meaning Cosmos 601), known before launch as DS-P1-Yu No.60, 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]

Launch

Kosmos 601 was successfully launched into low Earth orbit at 14:00:01 UTC on 16 October 1973.^[2] The launch took place from Site 133/1 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome,^[3] and used a Kosmos-2I 63SM carrier rocket.

Orbit

Upon reaching orbit, the satellite was assigned its Kosmos designation, and received the International Designator 1973-075A.^[4] The North American Aerospace Defense Command assigned it the catalogue number 06875.

Kosmos 601 was the sixty-fifth of seventy nine DS-P1-Yu satellites to be launched,^[1] and the fifty-ninth of seventy two to successfully reach orbit.^[5] It was operated in an orbit with a perigee of 197 kilometres (122 mi), an apogee of 1,404 kilometres (872 mi), 81.8 degrees of inclination, and an orbital period of 100.9 minutes.^[6] It remained in orbit until it decayed and reentered the atmosphere on 15 August 1974.^[6]

See also

• 1973 in spaceflight

References