BelKA Spacecraft (Removed from Service)

The BelKA spacecraft belongs to a small satellite series in a sun-synchronous orbit. BelKA is designed for an operational imaging the Earth’s surface in visible and near infrared regions with a high spatial resolution.

The mission end application is jointly by National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federal Space Agency.
Tasks to Be Fulfilled

• Mapping (topographic and geodesic applications, government geodesic supervision);


• Cadastral account of estate property;


• Development of large building projects including gas and oil pipelines, railways, hydropower stations and etc.;


• Geological investigations and conservation of mineral resources;


• Environment monitoring including monitoring of forest fires and man-made emissions, glaciers and agricultural sector objects, etc.;


• Monitoring of forest condition, reforestation;


• Monitoring of water bodies.

Main Characteristics

• Target launch date – July 2006


• Operational orbit – sun-synchronous, H=510km


• Spacecraft mass – 750kg


• Payload mass – 139.6kg


• Active lifetime – 5 years


• Launching facilities – „Dnepr„ launcher


• Space port – „Baikonur„


• Consumer – Belorusian National Academy of Sciences


• Prime developer – S.P. Korolev Rocket & Space Corporation Energiya

Data acquisition stations:

• Minsk (Belarus)


• Moscow (Russia)

Linear resolution on ground:

• Of panchromatic system – 2.5m


• Of multispectral system (4 channels)- 10.5m


• Swath width — 440km


• Span width — 20km


• Carrier frequency of data transfer – X band


• Data rate, Mbps – between 61 and 245

Special Features

To develop BelKA spacecraft uses the Viktoriya universal space bus. This is radically new and advanced approach to creating a new generation of remote sensing spacecraft. The spacecraft designed for high-resolution optoelectronic observation has the operating parameters enabling most of civil tasks and may, on occasion, be used successfully in special-purpose systems. Several spacecraft like that may be integrated into special-purpose systems to increase the observational efficiency and acquire source data to be used in imagery scheduling from high-resolution (0.3m) spacecraft.
The resolution of up to 2.5m and four spectral channels of the target-oriented equipment allow for national economic tasks to the benefit of MINECONOMRESURS, Ministry of Natural Resources, Federal Geodesy and Cartography Service, EMERCOM, etc. In addition to key tasks the spacecraft will enable scientific and applied researches in the Earth and atmosphere remote sensing.

The spacecraft has not been put into operation by reason of accident occurred while carrier rocket launch.