Back in May, we posted about how Russia's Elektro-L3 geostationary weather satellite was expected to move from 76°E to 14.5°W, which would finally bring an unencrypted L-band LRIT/HRIT downlink over Western Europe. Thank you to RTL-SDR reader tec_msat for writing in and letting us know that the move now appears to be underway.
tec_msat writes that Elektro-L3 went quiet around September 10. Updated TLEs on September 13 then showed the satellite drifting west at roughly 1.7 degrees per day. Around September 20, its orbit was circularized, making it drift faster at around 3.1 degrees per day. At its current speed, it should reach 14.5°W around October 12. Based on Elektro-L5's commissioning timeline, test transmissions could begin within days of arrival.
Elektro-L5, launched in February 2026, has now been successfully commissioned at L3's old 76°E slot, which covers Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Russia and Australia. It has been transmitting GGAK, LRIT and HRIT, as well as X-band RDAS. With L5 taking over the eastern slot, L3 will replace the aging Elektro-L2 at 14.5°W. L2 never provided LRIT/HRIT from that position due to power supply issues, although the original Elektro-L1 did when it was stationed there.
Roscosmos noted in August, when announcing L5's commissioning, that L3 may be moved to 14.5°W. However, there has been no official announcement from Roscosmos that the relocation has started, so the drift observations currently come from amateur TLE tracking.
Once commissioned, L3 should once again make geostationary L-band weather imagery at 1691 MHz available to users in the UK, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, Spain and western France. tec_msat also speculates that the signal may be stronger over Europe than it was from 76°E (potentially due to better elevation angles), making xRIT reception even easier.
If you're in the coverage area, now might be a good time to get your dish, feed and LNA ready. SatDump is the best software tool to use for reception and decode and our Discovery Dish with L-Band feed and RTL-SDR Blog V3 is a great starting point for hardware.
