Russian military satellite linked to nuclear program spins out of control

American analysts have discovered that a Russian satellite associated with the anti-satellite nuclear weapons program has gone out of control.

This is reported by Reuters.

A secret Russian satellite, Kosmos 2553, which the US military believes is linked to a nuclear anti-satellite weapons program, has begun to spin uncontrollably, indicating that it is probably no longer operational.

The satellite was launched by Russia a few weeks before the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. During 2024, it had already experienced uncontrolled rotation attacks.

It is believed that Kosmos 2553 was engaged in radar reconnaissance and also served as a platform for radiation testing. According to the US military, although it is not a weapon itself, the experiments conducted on it help Russia develop nuclear anti-satellite weapons.

This satellite is in a relatively isolated orbit at an altitude of about 2000 km above the Earth. At this altitude, there are “hot spots” of cosmic radiation, so communication or surveillance satellites usually avoid such orbits.

In November 2024, LeoLabs, a company that monitors satellites using a ground-based radar network, discovered that the satellite had been making random movements. In December, the company upgraded its assessment to “high confidence” that the satellite was out of control, based on additional radar data and images of the satellite taken by another space company.

“This observation strongly suggests that the satellite is no longer operational,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, explained.

The satellite had previously shown signs of strange behavior. Slingshot, whose global network of telescopes has been tracking the spacecraft since its launch on February 5, 2022, detected the movement in May 2024. At the time, Slingshot noted that the object’s brightness became variable, indicating a potential rotation.

But, according to Belinda Marchand, the company’s chief scientist, according to Slingshot’s latest observations, Kosmos 2553 seems to have stabilized.

As a reminder, it was recently reported that the US Space Force detected an unknown object having disconnected from a Russian satellite.

The event took place on March 18, 2025. At that time, the ground-based systems of the US Space Force detected the disconnection of an unknown object from the Russian satellite Kosmos 2583, which is likely to be on a reconnaissance mission. On the eve of the disconnection, the satellite performed a maneuver together with two other vehicles – Kosmos 2581 and Kosmos 2582, whose role remains unknown.