Applications Programs Russia has sent many unmanned spacecraft toward other planets and into interplanetary space, as discussed
in space exploration and articles on individual programs. The vast majority of Russian
satellites that are launched annually, however, are designed for routine applications purposes. About a dozen "constellations," or groupings, of satellites can be identified in which failed satellites are continually being replaced (see Table 2). Other programs, involving short-term missions, consist mainly of recoverable satellites carrying military visual reconnaissance equipment or Earth-resources survey cameras, with an occasional biosatellite. Such missions are called Kosmos ("Cosmos"), as are many of the satellite constellations, but they can be distinguished by their low altitudes (from 170 to 420 km/105 to 260 mi) and distinctive orbital inclinations, evidently determined by the use of standardized launch profiles. Thus those with inclinations near 62.8, 67.1, 72.9, and 82.3 degrees come from Plesetsk, whereas those near 64.9 and 70.0 degrees come from Baikonur. All satellite recoveries take place in Kazakhstan, but a new landing zone in Russia is now operational. Besides these generic programs, a number of specialized programs have been developed in Russia. Occasional unclassifiable Kosmos missions, for example, conduct unique experimental programs. Scientific satellites in the Prognoz and Astron programs observe the Sun and stars, and a special Earth-resources radar observer named Almaz was launched in 1990. In the 1960s the Soviet Union developed two unique space weapons systems, the "killer satellite" and the "fractional orbit bombardment system" (FOBS). The former program involved two dozen tests of a co-orbiting spacecraft (first flown under the cover name Polyot) that closes in on a target and fires a burst of shrapnel at it. Testing was halted in 1982 and the program appears to have been scrapped by 1990. The latter program involved placing thermonuclear warheads into orbit to allow them to approach their targets from unexpected, low trajectories. Tested secretly in 1966Ð70, the program was probably scrapped by 1975. The Soviet Union always officially denied the existence of both these programs. After the collapse of the USSR, the Russian space program was reorganized under the new Russian Space Agency (RKA in Russian). Military
activities, and most launch, tracking, and landing support, continue to be the responsibility of the Russian Military Space Forces (VKS in Russian). Through the mid-1990s a crisis in funding and staffing forced massive cutbacks in Russian space activities.