Toward a Physical Characterization of the Soviet/Russian Constellation of Molniya Satellites

We report on the extended 2014–17 observing campaign of the 43 surviving Soviet/Russian spacecraft Molniya, carried out at Mexican and Italian telescopes. Spectrophotometry and astrodynamical analysis have been carried out for all the dead payloads now in uncontrolled HEO orbit, in order to assess the possible differential age effect on the dynamical and reflectance properties of such a wide family of virtually identical orbiting objects, under the influence of Sun’s radiation and gravitational and geomagnetic perturbation.