Kosmos 225 (Russian: Космос 225 meaning Cosmos 225), also known as DS-U1-Ya No.2, was a Soviet satellite which was launched in 1968 as part of the Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik programme. It was a 400 kilograms (880 lb) spacecraft,^[1] which was built by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, and was used to investigate cosmic rays and flows of charged particles in the Earth's magnetosphere.^[2]

A Kosmos-2I 63SM carrier rocket was used to launch Kosmos 225 into low Earth orbit. The launch took place from Site 86/4 at Kapustin Yar.^[3] The launch occurred at 21:29:54 GMT on 11 June 1968, and resulted in the successful insertion of the satellite into orbit.^[4] Upon reaching orbit, the satellite was assigned its Kosmos designation, and received the International Designator 1968-048A.^[5] The North American Air Defense Command assigned it the catalogue number 03279.

Kosmos 225 was the second of two DS-U1-Ya satellites to be launched, but the only one to successfully reach orbit; the DS-U1-Ya No.1 satellite having been lost in a launch failure, on 6 March 1968, due to a second stage malfunction, 216 seconds into its flight.^[2][6] Kosmos 225 was operated in an orbit with a perigee of 255 kilometres (158 mi), an apogee of 512 kilometres (318 mi), an inclination of 48.4°, and an orbital period of 92.2 minutes.^[7] It completed operations on 29 June 1968, before decaying from orbit and reentering the atmosphere on 2 November 1968.^[7]

See also

• 1968 in spaceflight

References