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COSMOS 2541 (EKS 3)

Russian Nuclear Missile Early Warning Satellite (Tundra/EKS) · Russian Aerospace Forces

Somewhere in a highly elliptical orbit right now, one of the small number of satellites still functioning in Russia's entire nuclear early-warning system is quietly staring down at Earth, watching for the infrared flash of a missile launch. Cosmos 2541 is part of the Tundra/EKS network — the space-based half of the system that would tell the Kremlin a nuclear strike was inbound. Russia planned ten of these. By late 2025, independent trackers estimated as few as one or two were still confirmed operational, a genuinely alarming gap in a system meant to prevent nuclear war by mistake.