A Russian satellite came dangerously close to a Finnish-American satellite this weekend in a provocative maneuver that could foreshadow the new norm for space warfare.
According to public orbital tracking data, COSMOS-2612, a Russian satellite launched in April with very few details disclosed, approached too close for comfort to ICEYE-X36, an imaging satellite from the Finnish company ICEYE that is owned by its U.S. subsidiary and has been used by the Ukrainian military. Nobody knows quite what KOSMOS-2612 did or what its intentions were, but the two satellites were at most a few hundred meters apart, with some estimates putting the distance at within 30 meters. Though the exact distance is unclear, it still appears to be the closest known deliberate and uninvited interaction between two active spacecraft in low-Earth orbit.
No explanatory or corroborating statements have emerged from Russian or U.S. defense officials, nor from ICEYE, leaving outside experts to speculate about the apparent orbital game of cat-and-mouse unfolding overhead.\
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