Tselina D
Tselina D spacecraft, launched exclusively by the Tsyklon-3 launch vehicle since 1983, are estimated to have a mass of less than two metric tons. The similarity of their orbits to Okean satellites, their similar radar cross-sections, and their lack of maneuverability, suggest that these ELINT spacecraft, like their Tselina D cousins, are the product of the Ukranian Yuzhnoye Scientific Production Association, the makers of Okean. A report in 1985, citing a classified GAO study, estimated that these ELINT satellites could determine the location of pulsed emitters with an accuracy of about 10 km (Reference 66).
The original Tselina D constellation consisted of six spacecraft in evenly spaced orbital planes, but by the end of 1992, the network appeared to have been reduced to only three satellites with 60 degree orbital plane separations. The only launch of 1993 occurred on 16 April when Kosmos 2242 was inserted into an orbital plane midway between the previous two missions (Kosmos 2221 and Kosmos 2228), forming a potential new system of three spacecraft in orbital planes only 30 degrees apart.
The only other apparent Tselina D mission of the 1993-1994 period failed on 25 May 1994 when a Tsyklon-3 launch vehicle suffered a staging malfunction and its payload fell back to Earth into the East Siberian Sea. The timing of the launch from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome suggested an attempt to "replace" the old Kosmos 1975 spacecraft, whose orbital plane was 90 degrees away from Kosmos 2242, and the spacecraft may have been the last of its kind. The operational status of the Tselina D constellation can be inferred by Kettering Group interceptions of the spacecraft's CW beacon operating at about 153 MHz.
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