On 17 May 2024, at 00:21:39 MSK (09:21:39 on 16 May 2024 UTC) crews of the Air and Space Forces conducted a successful launch of a Souyz-2.1b launcher from the 43/4 launch pad of the Plesetsk test site. The launcher and the Fregat booster deployed a military satellite and six small civilian spacecraft.

The military satellite received the designation Cosmos-2576 and international designation 2024-092A. It was registered by NORAD as object 59773. Cosmos-2576 is believed to be a reconnaissance satellite of the Razbeg/MKA-V type. The satellite is deployed on sun-synchronous orbit with the altitude of about 500 km.

Previous launch of a satellite of this type, Cosmos-2575, took place in February 2024.

UPDATE: Marco Langbroek suggests that Cosmos-2576 may be an inspector satellite.

Speaking at a session of the UN Security Council on 20 May 2024, U.S. representative also said that "the United States assesses [that the satellite] is likely a counterspace weapon. ... Russia deployed this new counterspace weapon into the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite." The U.S. said that the launch of Cosmos-2576 "follows prior Russian satellite launches likely of counterspace systems to low Earth orbit in 2019 and 2022." The launches mentioned appear to be that of Cosmos-2558 in August 2022, and probably that of Cosmos-2561 and Cosmos-2562 in October 2022. The 2019 launches may be those of Cosmos-2542 in November 2019 and some satellites launched in July 2019.