Behind The Black – Robert Zimmerman

Three different articles in the aerospace media today document multiple maneuvers by multiple military satellites from Russia, China, and America, either doing proximity operations near each other or moving close to another country’s satellites to spy on them.

This article in space.com describes the rendezvous operations of Russia’s Cosmos 2581, 2582, and 2583.

The satellites, known as COSMOS 2581 and COSMOS 2583, got within just 10 feet (3 meters) or so of each other on April 28, according to COMSPOC, a Pennsylvania-based space situational awareness software company. “This wasn’t a coincidental pass — COSMOS 2583 performed several fine maneuvers to maintain this tight configuration,” COMSPOC wrote in a May 1 post on X, which featured an animation of the rendezvous.

The two satellites and a third one, COSMOS 2582, launched to low Earth orbit in February 2025 atop a Soyuz rocket. According to COMSPOC, all three of them were involved in the recent rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), as was “Object F,” a subsatellite previously deployed by COSMOS 2583.

Then russianspaceweb.com had two different articles describing different similar operations. First, a set of satellites launched in February 2026 appeared to be testing operations in very low orbit, illegally transmitting data using frequencies that the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) allocates for amateur radio operations.

Finally, the website reported a complex dance between Russian, American, and Chinese satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

Almost immediately after entering the geostationary orbit, Kosmos-2589 was “approached” by a presumed American inspector satellite, officially known as USA-325. On April 19, 2026, the US satellite, itself drifting eastward relative to the geostationary position and the Earth’s surface, seemingly overshot Kosmos-2589, but once the Russian satellite stabilized at 98 East longitude, USA-325 stopped and returned. By around April 28, 2026, … one approach under favorable lighting conditions for the “inspector” was within 13 kilometers from Kosmos-2589, according to a team of observers from Exton, PA, cited by COMSPOC.

In turn … Kosmos-2589 essentially occupied a position registered by China under designation CHNSAT-98E, with three Chinese commercial and military satellites deployed in relative vicinity of that location.

… Moreover, in April 2026, China’s presumed inspector satellite — TJS-10 — pre-positioned itself at 92.4 degrees East longitude after an easterly drift, which would put it on a rendezvous course with Kosmos-2589 at 98.0 East longitude. Instead, the Chinese satellite stopped its drift with a maneuver on May 1, 2026, which “fixed” it in a geostationary orbit at 92.4 degrees East longitude, in the vicinity of the US AEHF military satellite, which carries high-security communications of the US military and its allies.

With this last story, we have this almost absurd situation: The U.S. satellites are spying on Russian satellites, which are spying on Chinese satellites, which are spying on American satellites.

All this maneuvering however indicates once again that the ability of commercial satellites to rendezvous with other objects — either to de-orbit space junk or repair damaged satellites — is only going to get better. The military might control these capabilities now, under a veil of secrecy, but such capabilities always leak out into the private sector shortly thereafter.