Kosmos-2558 beside USA 326
An object of Topographics Service of the Russian Armed Froces came up beside an object of National Reconnaissance Office, 67 km away at the nearest its sources state.
Reported: 7 public reports other than Orbinauts name these two.
From the public record
- From
- August 2022
- to April 2025
- Closest stated
- 67 km
- Aug 4, 2022
- Orbit
- LEO
- low Earth orbit
The one that moved
Kosmos-2558
Topographics Service of the Russian Armed Froces, RU
53323 · 2022-089A · launched Aug 1, 2022
The one it came up to
USA 326
National Reconnaissance Office, United States
51445 · 2022-009 · launched Feb 2, 2022
What the sources state
Every day and distance here is the sources’ own, to the precision they state.
- When
- August 2022 to April 2025
- Same planeAug 1, 2022
- launched at 20:25 UTC into the orbital plane of USA 326, a RAAN difference of only 0.04 degree
- Closest statedAug 4, 2022
- the close flyby happened near 14:16:27 UTC (August 4, 2022) at a nominal distance of ~67 km
- LeftApril 2025
- stopped orbit maintenance in April 2025 and re-entered on 13 September 2026
The detector was not yet running: it reads low Earth orbit since April 2026 and the geostationary belt since October 2026.
Reported elsewhere
Who else said these two were together, earliest first.
| Said on | Who | What |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 2, 2022 | Analyst | Marco Langbroek, "Kosmos 2558, a Russian inspector satellite targetting the US IMINT satellite USA 326?", SatTrackCam Leiden, 2 August 2022 |
| Aug 6, 2022 | Analyst | Marco Langbroek, "The flyby of USA 326 by Kosmos 2558 on August 4: a post-analysis", SatTrackCam Leiden, 6 August 2022 |
| Aug 10, 2022 | government | Gen. James Dickinson, U.S. Space Command, to NBC News, August 2022, as quoted by Gizmodo |
| Sep 7, 2022 | Analyst | Marco Langbroek, "Kosmos 2558 keeping its orbit close to USA 326", SatTrackCam Leiden, 7 September 2022, updated 9 September |
| May 20, 2024 | Analyst | Marco Langbroek, "The Russian KOSMOS 2576 launch of May 16, and USA 314", SatTrackCam Leiden, 20 May 2024, the update on Kosmos 2558 |
| May 5, 2025 | Analyst | Bart Hendrickx, "Project Nivelir: Russia's inspection satellites (part 2)", The Space Review, 5 May 2025 |
| Sep 13, 2026 | Analyst | Pavel Podvig, "Cosmos-2558, an inspector satellite", russianforces.org, 1 August 2022, updated 13 September 2026 |