THE SPACE FORCE TURNS ONE

摘要

OF THE MORE THAN 2,000 active satellites currently in low Earth orbit, Kosmos 2543 may be the most notorious. Russia launched the spacecraft on November 25, 2019, as a small "inspector" satellite designed to check on the country's own satellites in orbit. But within a couple weeks of launch, it separated from its mothership, and in January, civilian space watchers alerted the world that both spacecraft had sidled up into roughly the same orbit as USA 245, an American reconnaissance satellite.