Prom night : the best night of your life

 https://welib.org/md5/01b728db757349842c5d74de604752f0

The Rocket Company

 https://welib.org/md5/fdfc939a1350807307979455a1ce05ad

Kosmos 2372

 2000-056A

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The Kosmos-2372 satellite is rumored to be designated Yenisei-2. Only one object was cataloged as ejected, on the day prior to reentry.

Kosmos-2372
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
2000 Sep 25	1010:00	Launch by Zenit-2	KB LC45/1
	1012:28	Stage 1 sep
	1014:58	Fairing
	1017:18	Stage 2 MECO
	1020:28	Stage 2 VECO
	1020:29	Stage 2 sep
2000 Sep 25			90.00 211 x 337 x 64.8
2000 Sep 26			89.98 211 x 335 x 64.8
2000 Oct 5			89.67 203 x 312 x 64.8
2000 Oct 6		mv	90.00 207 x 340 x 64.8
2000 Oct 17			89.60 199 x 309 x 64.77
2000 Oct 17	0306?	SpK-1/2 fiducial	-679 x 237 x 64.8
2000 Oct 18		mv up	90.01 212 x 337 x 64.77
2000 Nov 1		trim	89.63 208 x 303 x 64.76
2000 Nov 7		89.36 199 x 286 x 64.8
2000 Nov 7	2053?	SpK-3/4 fiducial
2000 Nov 9		mv up	89.77 209 x 317 x 64.77
2000 Nov 17			89.52 203 x 297 x 64.8
2000 Nov 17		mv up	89.74 246 x 276 x 64.8
2000 Nov 27	1420?	SpK-5/6 fiducial
2000 Dec 6			89.10 218 x 241 x 64.8
2000 Dec 6		mv up	89.73 221 x 300 x 64.8
2000 Dec 14			89.47 214 x 282 x 64.8
		mv up	89.82 220 x 309 x 64.8
2000 Dec 17	0945?	SpK-7/8 fid
2000 Dec 25			89.49 211 x 286 x 64.8
2000 Dec 29		mv up	89.80 211 x 317 x 64.8
2001 Jan 6	0213?	SpK-9/10 fid
2001 Jan 17			89.34 197 x 286 x 64.8
		mv up	89.60 198 x 310 x 64.8
2001 Jan 25	2026?	SpK-11/12 fid
2001 Jan 26			89.22 189 x 282 x 64.8
		mv up	89.95 197 x 346 x 64.8
2001 Jan 29			89.87 196 x 338 x 64.7
		mv up	89.97 205 x 340 x 64.8
2001 Feb 13			89.46 195 x 299 x 64.7
2001 Feb 14		mv up	89.65 207 x 306 x 64.7
2001 Feb 20			89.35 200 x 284 x 64.8
2001 Mar 3			88.66 181 x 235 x 64.8
2001 Mar 4		Orbit raise	91.45 244 x 446 x 64.8
2001 Mar 5			91.43 243 x 445 x 64.8
2001 Mar 23			91.21 239 x 428 x 64.7
2001 Mar 23		Orbit lower	89.90 188 x 350 x 64.7
2001 Mar 31			89.46 180 x 314 x 64.7
2001 Mar 31		Orbit raise	89.84 211 x 321 x 64.7
2001 Apr 18			88.78 179 x 249 x 64.7
2001 Apr 19		56H cataloged
2001 Apr 22	1830?	Deorbited

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

QuickSCAT

 1999-034A

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QuickSCAT  was ordered in Nov 1997 for launch in Nov 1998, to replace the NSCAT scatterometer on the failed ADEOS craft and fill a data gap prior to its ADEOS-2 successor instrument SeaWinds. QuickSCAT (or QuikScat) is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Earth Science/Mission to Planet Earth, and Goddard procures the BCP-2000 (RS-2000) satellite built by Ball Aerospace under a special fast procurement method. Launch will be by Titan II. The satellite has a rotating dish microwave antenna like SeaWinds.

Quikscat
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1999 Jun 20	0215:00	Launch
		T+2:31 Stage 1 MECO
		T+2:32 Stage 2
		T+2:33 Stage 1 sep
		T+3:37 Titan 23G Short Fairing sep
	0220	T+5:36 Stage 2 MECO	222 x 815 x 98.6
	0310	T+55:48 Stage 2 vernier apogee burn, 15s
	0313	T+58:43 Stage 2 sep	276 x 815 x 98.6
	0315	T+1:00:00 Solar array deploy
	0345	T+1:30:43 Stage 2 retro burn
1999 Jun 24	2000	Begin orbit raising burns	95.62 281 x 815 x 98.7
1999 Jun 24			95.82 302 x 814 x 98.7
1999 Jun 27			99.11 601 x 830 x 98.7
1999 Jun 29			100.21 715 x 821 x 98.7
1999 Jul 1			100.21 714 x 822 x 98.7
1999 Jul 3			100.21 724 x 812 x 98.7
1999 Jul 5			101.01 791 x 820 x 98.6
1999 Jul 9		Final burns	101.01 791 x 820 x 98.6
1999 Jul 14			100.99 797 x 814 x 98.6
1999 Jul 19			101.00 804 x 807 x 98.6
1999 Jul 30			101.00 804 x 806 x 98.6
2001 Jan 31			100.97 804 x 805 x 98.6
2003 Jul 3			100.94 802 x 803 x 98.6
2006 Apr		Still operating