New Delhi: Russian satellite Cosmos-2612 came within 26 metres of the Finnish-made, US-registered ICEYE-X36 Monday, raising alarm in the West. ICEYE-X36 supplies Ukraine’s war effort with high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery and space-based battlefield intelligence.
The latest manoeuvre comes amid a series of Russian Cosmos satellites circling ICEYE-X36 since April this year, as well as reported restrictions by the US Central Command on Ukraine’s military use of Starshield, SpaceX’s satellite communications system.
Although the United States maintains jurisdiction over ICEYE-X36, physical interference with or damage to the satellite would not automatically constitute an armed attack on US sovereign territory. Nevertheless, NATO has affirmed that hostile acts in space could potentially trigger collective defence commitments, depending on the circumstances and the alliance’s assessment.
Under Article 8 of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the nation that registers an object launched into outer space retains jurisdiction and control over it while it is in orbit. Despite ICEYE’s Finnish origin, the specific ICEYE-X36 was built, deployed, and formalised under its American subsidiary, ICEYE US, Inc., headquartered in Irvine, California.
The satellite’s American registration also means that it had to be vetted and receive licenses from US government agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and The Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The two licenses grant them permission to capture high resolution SAR and how they can transmit this data.
ICEYE operates the world’s largest SAR satellite constellation and provides imagery and other services to many governments, including the US, Canada, Germany, Japan and South Korea. Unlike optical satellites, its radar can penetrate heavy cloud cover and smoke and operate in complete darkness, allowing it to map ground movements with a precision of up to 16 centimetres. Ukrainian intelligence has used ICEYE data to identify thousands of Russian targets, including air bases, air defence systems and fuel depots.
Russia’s orbital approaches to ICEYE-X36 represent a deliberate, months-long rendezvous and proximity operation (RPO). The campaign began shortly after Moscow launched six military inspection satellites, Cosmos-2609 through Cosmos-2614, aboard a Soyuz-2.1b rocket on 16 April.
Within weeks, five of these spacecraft expended substantial amounts of onboard fuel to adjust their orbital inclinations to match that of the US-registered SAR platform. The manoeuvres culminated in a 26 May close approach by Cosmos-2609 at roughly 2.5 kilometres.
After a period of natural orbital drift over the summer, the activity escalated when Cosmos-2612 began a series of high-energy manoeuvres on 30 September, reducing a gap of 321 kilometres to 5 kilometres by mid-October. Independent tracking data and space situational awareness networks subsequently recorded approaches as close as 26 metres, placing the Russian spacecraft in a position to closely shadow the commercial satellite.
Data from space-tracking organisations such as LeoLabs, alongside research by policy institutes such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), highlight the rarity of such orbital adjustments in low Earth orbit, primarily because they consume significant amounts of a satellite’s limited fuel reserves.
What can Russia do at such close range?
Astrophysicists such as Dr Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical Space Situational Awareness at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands on his X account Saturday, warned that operating so close could allow Cosmos-2612 to attempt localised radio-frequency jamming, potentially disrupting ICEYE-X36’s radar capabilities or blocking its communications channels. A “worrisome cat-and-mouse-game in space,” he called it.
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New blogpost:
"KOSMOS 2612 and ICEYE-X36: a worrisome cat-and-mouse-game in Space"
(link to blogpost in next tweet) pic.twitter.com/bzNtADpIrA
— Dr Marco Langbroek (@Marco_Langbroek) October 17, 2026
Directed-energy mechanisms, including localised lasers or microwave beams, could also pose risks by dazzling the satellite’s sensors or compromising its antenna hardware without producing the debris associated with an explosive impact.
By flying in close formation without the other operator’s consent, the Russian spacecraft could also be positioned to observe the satellite’s physical design and hardware configurations, potentially gathering information about its capabilities. However, the extent to which Cosmos-2612 can intercept tactical data feeds or determine the satellite’s internal frequencies from this distance remains unclear.
Another possibility is kinetic damage, where a satellite jettisons a projectile to physically damage its target spacecraft.
On 15 July 2020, US Space Command reported observing activity involving the Russian satellite Cosmos-2543 that it described as an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon test. Gen John W. ‘Jay’ Raymond, then head of US Space Command, said orbital surveillance data showed Russia had deployed a high-speed orbital projectile. British Air Vice-Marshal Harvey Smyth also issued a joint statement with the US, publicly identifying and condemning the activity as an ASAT weapon demonstration.
Beyond the risk of physical damage, space security experts Clayton Swope and Chantal Li of CSIS have warned that such manoeuvres can shorten a commercial satellite’s operational life. In their report published last Thursday, they explained that when a hostile spacecraft approaches a private satellite, its operator may be forced to expend finite onboard propellant to carry out defensive evasive manoeuvres. Repeated manoeuvres can reduce the satellite’s remaining operational lifespan. Swope described the little separation that exists as “bumper-to-bumper” to Axios Friday.
International space law does not establish universally binding minimum separation distances between orbiting spacecraft. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits placing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit and prevents countries from claiming sovereignty over outer space and celestial bodies. It also requires states to exercise due regard for the interests of other states and provides for consultations when an activity could cause potential interference.
Ashwin Shekhar is a TPSJ alum, currently interning with ThePrint.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)