Kosmos 2344

 1997-028A

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The unusual satellite Kosmos-2344 was launched in Jun 1997. A few days earlier, a newspaper report identified it as a new type of GRU reconnaissance satellite, the 11F664. The ILS web page identifies the payload as Arak (possibly an error for Araks). The Kettering group identified earlier papers in Russian journals which had described the Arkon-1 satellite in this orbit. The papers were by organizations NPAO Elas and NPC Opteks, and revealed that the satellite had a 27m focal length reflecting telescope and an 8-band CCD optical/NIR sensor with a 30 km swath width.

The satellite was launched by a Proton-K with a DM-2M upper stage. The Proton-K entered a low parking orbit. The DM-2M then made two burns to a 1506 x 2744 km x 63.4 deg orbit. This altitude was unprecedented for a Soviet military satellite, although a 1986 Zenit-2 11K77 test flight had delivered a calibration satellite, Kosmos-1786, to a similar orbit to the elliptical transfer orbit for this mission.

Kosmos-2344 seems to have stopped operating in Oct 1997, well short of its planned 1 year life. In a 2003 interview, Lavochkin officials claimed that a mistake by ground controllers caused the failure. A followon Arkon (Araks Konvertsiya?) satellite is being funded by the arms export agency Rosvooruzhenie.

The third volume of the history of the VKS identifies Araks-N and Araks-R satellites and claims there were also launches of Araks in 1995 and 1996: this likely refers to tests of the Araks equipment flown on other satellites.

Kosmos-2344
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1997 Jun 6	1656:54	Launch by Proton-K	KB LC200
		T+2:06 St 1 sep
		T+3:19 Fairing sep
		T+5:38 St 2 sep
		8S812 burn
	1706	8S812 cutoff	135 x 148 x 64.8
	1706:14?	8S812 sep (28B)
	1706	Blok DM-2M adapter sep (uncataloged)
	1753	DM-2M burn 1	201 x 2490 x 64.5
		SOZ sep (28D)
		SOZ sep (28E)
	1857	DM-2M burn 2
	1900?	DM-2M cutoff	1506 x 2744 x 63.4
	1900?	DM-2M sep (28C)
		Adapter sep (28F)	1508 x 2751 x 63.4
		Payload activation (28A)	1509 x 2747 x 63.4
1997 Jun 18	1632	Reduced apogee by 36 km
1997 Jun 22	1615?	28G sep (sensor cover?)
1997 Oct 9		Orbit raise