Molniya Orbit - Uses

Uses

The primary use of the Molniya orbit was for the communications satellite series of the same name. After two launch failures in 1964, the first successful satellite to use this orbit was Molniya 1-01 launched on April 23, 1965. The early Molniya-1 satellites were used for long-range military communications starting in 1968, but the satellites had a short lifespan and had to be constantly replaced. Its replacement, the Molniya-2, provided both military and civilian broadcasting, and was used to create the Orbita television network, spanning the Soviet Union. These were in turn replaced by the Molniya-3 design. There is some confusion in the existing sources about the naming, with some sources suggesting that all of the satellites on-orbit are of the Molniya-3 type, but referred to as Molniya-1 through -3 depending on their purpose.

The same orbits, with slight adjustments, were also used by some Soviet spy satellites, with the apogee point over the continental United States. Although geostationary orbits are useful for observing the continental United States, Soviet sensor technology sometimes required high-contrast observing angles which could only be achieved from higher latitudes. One such example is the US-K early-warning satellite which watches for US missile launches, although improvements in these systems have since allowed them to move these to geostationary orbits.