The Russian Aerospace Defense Forces again dismissed US media rumors of a Russian military satellite allegedly exploding above the United States.

"These statements are yet another attempt to find out the location of the space object after the United States has lost track of it," Aerospace Defense Forces spokesman Col. Alexei Zolotukhin said.

He reiterated that all Russian spacecraft function in normal regime and ground control services have steady control over them. No malfunctions have been reported in the past days, according to the spokesman.

No malfunctions have been reported in the past days, the spokesman said.

A spokesman for the US Strategic Command told RIA Novosti earlier in the day that the Russian reconnaissance satellite re-entered the atmosphere and crashed last week.

On September 3, the American Meteor Society revealed more than 30 reports from alleged eyewitnesses who said they had seen a big fireball streaking across the sky. Website spaceflight101.com, dedicated to covering spaceflight events, assumed the fireball could have been Kosmos-2495 falling apart in the air.

Kosmos-2495, a member of the Yantar Russian satellite series, was launched on May 6, 2014, designed to operate on a low Earth orbit.

earlier related report
US Strategic Command Confident About Russian Military Satellite Crash Moscow (RIA Novosti) Sep 18, 2014 - Russian reconnaissance satellite Kosmos-2495 re-entered the atmosphere and crashed last week, a spokesman for the US Strategic Command told RIA Novosti on Friday.

"US Strategic Command's Joint Functional Component Command for Space [JFCC Space] through the Joint Space Operations Center [JSpOC] assesses with high confidence that Kosmos-2495 re-entered the atmosphere and was removed from the US satellite catalog as a decayed object on September 3," the spokesman said.

The Russian Defense Ministry previously denied media reports of a Russian military satellite allegedly exploding over the territory of the United States.

On September 3, the American Meteor Society published more than 30 reports from alleged eyewitnesses who claimed to observe a big fireball streaking across the sky. The spaceflight101.com website, dedicated to covering spaceflight events with special focus on the technical aspects of space flight, suggested it could have been Kosmos-2495.

Kosmos-2495 was launched on May 6, 2014. It is also known as reconnaissance satellite Kobalt-M, an operational member of the Yantar series of Russian satellites. It weighs 6.6 tons, operates on a low Earth orbit and is equipped with a film camera.

JFCC Space is responsible for integrated space operations in order to support national and military objectives.

JSpOC tracks more than 17,000 objects in space, providing information on space objects and debris to satellite owners and operators.