14F137 Persona / Kvarts

Reconnaissance satellites "Persona" have been developed in the first half of the 2000s, and the first such spacecraft was put into orbit in 2008. In total three "Persons" spacecraft were launched, of which two were operational as of mid-2016. Among other things, they are used for intelligence support for Syrian campaign. According to unconfirmed reports, the satellites of the "Person" are able to take pictures with a resolution of 30 centimeters. Weight of one unit of seven tons, and the term of active existence - seven years. "Persona" are located on a circular sun-synchronous orbit at an inclination of 98 degrees at an altitude of 750 kilometers.

The project of the military satellite of optico-electronic reconnaissance "Persona" (product 14F137), developed in JSC "RCC-Progress" (Samara), won the competition of the Ministry of Defense in 2000. The device is based on the civil satellite of Earth remote sensing "Resurs-DK". It is intended for obtaining high-resolution images and their prompt transmission to Earth via radio.

In 2008-2015, the military launched three such vehicles, but to date, only two of them functioned. The first was lost in 2008 a few months after the launch as a result of the failure of electronic components. The second and third vehicles (launched in June 2013 and June 2015) operate in normal mode and were actively involved in the operation of the Russian armed forces in Syria.

They provide the General Staff Russian Armed Forces operative images with detailed resolution. The military claimed that the need of the armed forces in a significant capacity optical reconnaissance satellites orbital grouping is particularly apparent during the Syrian campaign.

The acquisition of images from space vehicles since the mid-1990s was one of the weak points of the space forces: Soviet satellites such as the Niemen operated in orbit for not more than a year and a half, while the warranty period for the American Crystal and Improved Crystal was ten years. After the last "Neman" was removed from the orbit in 2001, the military had to rely only on Cobalt-type photo reconnaissance satellites, the captured films from which were returned to the ground in special capsules landing on parachutes in the Orenburg region - on the prompt receipt of information simply was not possible.

The first "Persona" had to be in orbit in 2003, but due to the need for additional testing dates are constantly shifted - as a result of a break in the use of the Russian Defense Ministry optical reconnaissance vehicles was almost ten years. The launch of the first "Persona" satellite was later planned for 2005, but due to a delay in ground tests, its launch took place only in July 2008. The cost of creating the first device was estimated at 5 billion rubles. The mass of the satellite is more than seven tons, the orbit height is about 750 km. The warranty period of active work is seven years.

The first Persona satellite was launched in July 2008; it reportedly malfunctioned in February 2009 due to an electronics failure.

The second was not launched until June 2013. "Persona" N2 was launched using a rocket carrier "Soyuz 2.1b" from the 43rd site of the Plesetsk cosmodrome on June 7, 2013. The removal of the apparatus to a circular solar-synchronous orbit with an inclination of 98 ° and a height of about 719 km was successful. Supervising the creation of the satellite of the deputy head of the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) Anatoly Shilov said that the launch of "Person" cost 10 billion rubles.

The second "Person" type encountered problems during the flight design tests. First the satellite performed the assigned tasks quite successfully: to debug the on-board systems and adjust the permissions, the first stage of the tests was conducted over the territory without sharp changes in the relief. But in November 2013, there were unexpected failures in the software of the on-board computer: less than twelve of the 24 memory cells of the high-speed radio link operated. This significantly affected the capabilities and functionality of the "Person". The military and representatives of the space industry unsuccessfully tried to restart the program. By August 2014 the problems with the software of the second "Persons" were resolved. According to "Kommersant", one of the youngest full-time programmers of "RCC-Progress" managed to restart the program almost single-handedly.

Due to the availability of only three Sapfir-V imaging payloads, Persona will after the third mission be replaced by the new developed Razdan series of imaging satellites.