Kosmos 2472 (Russian: Космос 2472 meaning Cosmos 2472) was a Russian Kobalt-M reconnaissance satellite which was launched in 2011 by the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces. It was launched in June 2011 and remained in orbit until October 2011.[2][3]
Kobalt-M satellites are a type of Yantar satellite, Yantar-4K2M. They have the GRAU index 11F695M. They are optical reconnaissance satellites which use film. The satellite sends two film capsules to Earth and returns to Earth itself at the end of its mission.[6] This has the disadvantage that the satellite's life is dependent on how much film it can carry, and information from the satellite is not obtained until the film canister has returned to Earth and been developed.[7]
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).