Russia's Satellite Nuclear Warning System Down Until November

Russia has delayed the launch of a new military satellite system by four months, news agency TASS reported Wednesday, leaving Moscow nearly blind in the event of a nuclear missile attack till at least November.

Russia's decaying constellation of Soviet-designed early warning satellites was left nearly blind last year, when one of the three remaining units malfunctioned. The remaining two satellites were taken offline in January, leaving Russian decision-makers reliant on land-based radar systems to detect incoming missiles.

Radar systems, however, give far less warning than the satellites of incoming strikes, as radar can only detect objects within a set range.

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