Meteor (satellite)

The Meteor spacecraft are weather observation satellites launched by the USSR and Russia. The Meteor satellite series was developed during the 1960s. The Meteor satellites were designed to monitor atmospheric and sea-surface temperatures, humidity, radiation, sea ice conditions, snow-cover, and clouds.

Meteor 1-26 is considered to be the most likely candidate for a 7 January 2016 satellite near collision. The Joint Space Operations Center which announced the possible collision didn't identify the satellites involved but third partly observers were of the opinion that Meteor 1-26 and DMSP F15 were the most likely candidates.

Meteor-2-21/Fizeau is the twenty-first and last in the Meteor-2 series of Russian meteorological satellites, which were launched 22 times from 1975 to 1993.

ILRS Mission Support Status: Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) tracking support of this satellite was discontinued in October 1998. What makes Meteor-2-21 distinctive from the other meteorological satellites is its unique retroreflector array. Fizeau is named after a French physicist, Armand Fizeau, who in 1851 conducted an experiment which tested for the aether convection coefficient. SLR tracking of this satellite was used for precise orbit determination and the Fizeau experiment. The Fizeau experiment tests the theory of special relativity – that distance events that are simultaneous for one observer will not be simultaneous for an observer in motion relative to the first.

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