| Kosmos 880 | |
| Mission Type: | ASAT target |
| Cospar Id: | 1976-120A |
| Spacecraft Type: | Lira |
| Manufacturer: | Yuzhnoye |
| Launch Date: | UTC |
| Launch Rocket: | Kosmos-3M |
| Launch Site: | Plesetsk 132/2 |
| Orbit Reference: | Geocentric |
| Orbit Regime: | Low Earth |
| Orbit Inclination: | 65.8 degrees |
| Orbit Period: | 96.3 minutes |
| Apsis: | gee |
Kosmos 880 (Russian: Космос 880 meaning Cosmos 880) was a satellite which was used as a target for tests of anti-satellite weapons. It was launched by the Soviet Union in 1976 as part of the Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik programme,[1] and used as a target for Kosmos 886, as part of the Istrebitel Sputnikov programme.[2]
It was launched aboard a Kosmos-3M carrier rocket,[3] from Site 132/2 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The launch occurred at 20:00 UTC on 9 December 1976.[4]
Kosmos 880 was placed into a low Earth orbit with a perigee of, an apogee of, 65.8 degrees of inclination, and an orbital period of 96.3 minutes.[1] It was successfully intercepted and destroyed by Kosmos 886 on 27 December 1976.[2] The last catalogued piece of debris decayed from orbit on 9 December 2001 (although pieces of debris of Kosmos 886, the intercepting device, remain in orbit as of 2023).[5]
Kosmos 880 was the fourth of ten Lira satellites to be launched,[1] of which all but the first were successful. Lira was derived from the earlier DS-P1-M satellite, which it replaced.