Mission type Technology
Radiation Spacecraft type DS-A1 Rocket Kosmos-2I 63S1 Launch date 30 January 1965 Decay date 12 August 1966 | COSPAR ID 1965-006A Launch mass 310 kilograms (680 lb) Launch site Kapustin Yar 86/1 Manufacturer Yuzhnoye Design Office | |
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Kosmos 53 (Russian: Космос 53 meaning Cosmos 53), also known as DS-A1 No.5 was a technology demonstration satellite which was launched by the Soviet Union in 1965 as part of the Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik programme. Its primary mission was to demonstrate technologies for future Soviet military satellites. It also conducted radiation experiments.
It was launched aboard a Kosmos-2I 63S1 rocket, flying Site 86/1 at Kapustin Yar. The launch occurred at 09:36 UTC on 30 January 1965.
Kosmos 53 was placed into a low Earth orbit with a perigee of 221 kilometres (137 mi), an apogee of 1,172 kilometres (728 mi), 48.7 degrees of inclination, and an orbital period of 98.7 minutes. It decayed on 12 August 1966. Kosmos 53 was the fifth of seven DS-A1 satellites to be launched, and the third to reach orbit after Kosmos 11 and Kosmos 17. The next DS-A1 launch after Kosmos 53 failed, before the last launch of the DS-A1 programme resulted in Kosmos 70 successfully reaching orbit in July 1965. As with earlier DS-A1 satellites, the technological experiments aboard Kosmos 53 were tests of communications and navigation systems which were later used on the GLONASS system.