A blanket title covering the series of ARTIFICIAL SATELLITES which embraces the major part of Soviet space activity. The Cosmos series includes scientific satellites (studying, for example, the ECOSPHERE, the space environment of the Earth), and satellites devoted to, for example, meteorology, military reconnaissance and prototypes of manned spacecraft. A considerable degree of standardization has been achieved, particularly with the smaller scientific satellites and their launch vehicles, these satellites being constructed from standard basic modules.
The first of the series, Cosmos 1, was launched on 16 March 1962, and since that time - although some years have seen considerably more launchings than others - the average rate of launching Cosmos satellites has been one per week. By February 1976, the number of launchings had passed 800.
