MOSCOW, August 20. /TASS/. Russia’s latest reconnaissance drone Altius-U weighing 6 tonnes has performed its debut flight, the Defense Ministry of Russia said on Tuesday.

"The flight lasted 32 minutes at an altitude of up to 800 meters in a fully automatic mode at one of testing aerodromes. All the drone’s systems operated normally," the ministry said in a statement.

Russia’s Defense Ministry posted the video of the reconnaissance drone’s debut flight in its YouTube page. The video shows the drone speeding up along the runway of a military aerodrome and making its flight. The video footage further demonstrates the drone performing maneuvers in the air with the non-retracted landing gear and making a landing. The drone’s board number is 881.

The Altius-U is the drone’s final conceptual design after the tests of several prototypes, the Defense Ministry said.

"The system is capable of accomplishing a whole range of reconnaissance assignments, employing optical, radio-technical and radar equipment and staying in the air for over 24 hours. The drone weighs about 6 tonnes," the ministry specified.

The Altius-U features a satellite control channel, "which makes the radius of its employment actually unlimited," the statement says. </s> The Russian Defense Ministry posted a video of the maiden flight of a 6-tonne Altius-U drone, capable of being in the air for more than 24 hours

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th August, 2019) The Russian Defense Ministry posted a video of the maiden flight of a 6-tonne Altius-U drone, capable of being in the air for more than 24 hours.

A video lasting 1 minute 3 seconds was posted on the ministry's YouTube channel. The video shows the drone's flight and maneuvers in the sky, as well as landing. </s> Another week, another Russian drone makes its first successful take-off. The defense ministry published footage of the maiden flight of a high-endurance reconnaissance UAV called Altius-U.

The footage shows a twin-engine large drone with a V-shaped tail performing its maiden flight. According to the ministry statement, the aircraft spent just over 30 minutes in the air and performed both the take off and landing in automatic mode.

Dubbed ‘Altius-U’ by the ministry, the 6-ton drone is meant as a high-endurance reconnaissance platform. It can stay in flight for more than 24 hours and has a satellite uplink for control, allowing it to be piloted from a great distance.

The drone is alternatively called Altair and has been in the works for quite some time. The project was launched in 2011 and had a bumpy road to finally taking off. Last year the contract was stripped from its original builder in Kazan over delays and was awarded instead to a Yekaterinburg-based subsidiary of the defense giant Rostec to complete.

Earlier this month another Russian heavy drone called Okhotnik (‘Hunter’ in Russian) made its maiden flight. That aircraft is meant to be a ground attack platform and has a flying wing body type.

Altius-U is said to be the final design that came out of the project so far. Earlier reports said it may be lightly armed when finally entering service. It was not immediately clear if a strike modification is still on the table.

If you like this story, share it with a friend! </s> A 1 minute and 3 second video was posted on the ministry's YouTube channel. The video shows the drone's flight and manoeuvres in the sky, as well as landing.

Altius-U is the final form of this unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), created as a result of the development and testing of a number of prototypes. The flight took place for 32 minutes at an altitude of up to 800 metres in fully automatic mode at one of the test aerodromes. All systems of the complex worked properly, the Ministry of Defence noted.

According to the report, the complex is capable of performing an entire spectrum of reconnaissance missions using optical, radio engineering and radar and can stay in the air for more than a day.

A feature of the complex is the use of a satellite control channel, making the radius of its application practically unlimited. </s> The Russian Defence Ministry has published a video of its new 6-tonne drone taking to the skies for its maiden flight.

Boasting that the Altius-U drone can stay up in the air ‘for up to 24 hours’, Russia says the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will undertake a wide variety of reconnaissance missions.

For the maiden flight, the drone flew for a total of 30 minutes at an altitude of 800 metres and landed safely afterwards.

The Defense Ministry posted the video of the reconnaissance drone’s debut flight in its YouTube page. The video shows the drone speeding up along the runway of a military aerodrome and making its flight.

The video also shows the drone performing maneuvers in the air with the non-retracted landing gear and making a landing.

‘The system is capable of accomplishing a whole range of reconnaissance assignments, employing optical, radio-technical and radar equipment and staying in the air for over 24 hours. The drone weighs about 6 tonnes,’ the ministry said in a statement.

Earlier this month, news emerged that the Russian government is working on a new stealth bomber as well.

The plane is called the PAK DA and will be tested in the coming years before being rolled out as soon as 2025, the Russian news agency TASS announced. </s> This article is more than 7 months old

This article is more than 7 months old

Russia has confirmed a fireball that streaked through the sky above New Zealand on Saturday was one of its early warning satellites burning up as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

The satellite’s dramatic descent was captured by TV cameras covering a cricket match between New Zealand and Sri Lanka in Mount Maunganui, New Zealand. The match commentator suggested it was a “meteor shower”.

Russia’s Aerospace Forces said the Kosmos 2430 missile early warning satellite, designed to detect intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches, was guided out of orbit as part of a planned operation on Saturday.

“The satellite burned up completely in the dense atmosphere above the Atlantic Ocean at a height of around 100km,” Aerospace Forces said, adding that its re-entry had been under control at all times. It said the early warning satellite had been non-operational since 2012. The satellite was launched in 2007 as part of Russia’s “Oko” ICBM detection system.

Russia is currently in the process of upgrading the Soviet-era system with more advanced missile-monitoring “Tundra” satellites. The first Tundra satellite was launched into orbit by Russia in 2015.

Norad, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also confirmed that the brightly coloured object, which fragmented as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, was Kosmos 2430.

“It looked like a jet plane at first, and I thought I could see that. But then it broke up into a million pieces – like fireworks,”’ Steve Bloor, who witnessed the event, told the New Zealand Herald. </s> Rocket: Atlas V 401; Payload: NROL-79; Date: 1 March 2017, 1750 UTC; Launch site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, USA. The payload was probably placed in a 1,120-km x 63 degrees orbit for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

Related Post:COM DEV International Ltd. results FY 201320th anniversary of GPS Initial Operational CapabilityFirst mission for SSTL’s new X50 platform will be for Kazakh customerAir Force Awards ATK $21 Million Contract6th Boeing GPS IIF completes on-orbit checkout milestoneYahsat announces plans to launch third satellite in 2016Northrop Grumman to develop Space Fence TechnologyATK to develop automated composite technologiesZemanta </s> The drone, known as an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), was taken on Thursday, the first seizure of its kind in recent memory. The Pentagon went public with its complaint after the action and said on Saturday it had secured a deal to get the drone back.

"Through direct engagement with Chinese authorities, we have secured an understanding that the Chinese will return the UUV to the United States," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.

The incident drew criticism from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to take a more aggressive approach in dealing with Beijing.

The drone, which the Pentagon said was operating lawfully and was clearly marked as U.S. property, was collecting data about the salinity, temperature and clarity of the water about 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay, off the Philippines.

It was seized on Thursday just as the USNS Bowditch was about to retrieve it, U.S. officials said.

The Defense Ministry said a Chinese naval vessel discovered a piece of "unidentified equipment," and checked it to prevent any navigational safety issues before discovering it was a U.S. drone.

"China decided to return it to the U.S. side in an appropriate manner, and China and the U.S. have all along been in communication about it," the ministry said on its website.

"During this process, the U.S. side's unilateral and open hyping up is inappropriate, and is not beneficial to the smooth resolution of this issue. We express regret at this," it added.

Trump, a Republican who takes office on Jan. 20, waded into the dispute on Twitter on Saturday.

"China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters - rips it out of water and takes it to China in unprecedented act," Trump said in a tweet early on Saturday from his seaside resort club Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, where he plans to spend the holidays.

The drone incident has raised fresh concerns about China's increased military presence and aggressive posture in the disputed South China Sea, including its militarization of maritime outposts.

New satellite imagery shows China has installed weapons, including anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems, on all seven artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea, a U.S. research group said this week.

Without directly saying whether the drone was operating in waters Beijing considers its own, China's Defense Ministry said U.S. ships and aircraft have for a long period been carrying out surveillance and surveys in "the presence" of Chinese waters.

"China is resolutely opposed to this, and demands the U.S. stops this kind of activity," it said.

China will remain on alert for these sorts of activities and take necessary steps to deal with them, the ministry said without elaborating.

The Global Times, published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, earlier cited an unidentified Chinese source as saying they believed the issue would be resolved smoothly.

Trump has previously complained about the South China Sea build-up. He has threatened to declare China a currency manipulator and force changes in U.S.-Chinese trade policy, which he says has led to the greatest theft of American jobs in history.

Trump has also raised questions about whether Washington would stick to its nearly four-decades-old policy of recognizing that Taiwan is part of "one China."

He irked Beijing by taking a congratulatory phone call from President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan after his Nov. 8 election victory. China lodged a diplomatic protest.

The 10-minute telephone call was the first of its kind since U.S. President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, acknowledging Taiwan as part of "one China."

President Barack Obama said on Friday it was fine for Trump to review Washington's policy toward Taiwan, but he cautioned that a shift could lead to significant consequences in the U.S. relationship with Beijing. (Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton and Jonathan Landay in Washington, Josephine Mason and Meng Meng in Beijing; editing by Ian Geoghegan, G Crosse) </s> Moscow,July15:An imaging satellite and 72 micro-satellites were launched into orbit Friday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the Russian space agency Roscosmos and research centre Glavcosmos announced.

The Soyuz 2-1A rocket successfully lifted off at 0643 GMT with the satellite payload, Roscosmos said in a statement.

According to Russian news agencies, Glavcosmos, charged with putting the satellites into orbit, later reported that by 1441 GMT all the satellites had successfully separated. They were released into three different orbits.

“For the first time in the world, such a complex and large mission has been developed and implemented,” said Glavcosmos.

The primary payload, the Kanopus-V-IK satellite, is to provide wide-angle images of the Earth and will be used especially to detect forest fires or to update the topography of maps.

The 72 small satellites include those made by Japan, Germany and Canada along with 62 nanosatellites known as CubeSats, developed by the United States.
The Russian Ministry of Defence announces that the six-tonne satellite-controlled reconnaissance drone Altius-U has performed its maiden flight.