Hey—has anyone seen a military satellite? Because the Russians just launched one, and it's not where it's supposed to be. (Check behind the couch?)

The Russian Defense Ministry and Roscosmos, its space agency, launched a brand new GEO-IK-2 satellite on Tuesday. It was supposed to map the earth—in order to "help the Russian military to locate the precise positions of various targets"—from about 600 miles up in space.

Only it didn't quite get there. Where did it go? (Maybe in the pants Russia wore yesterday?) "Space monitoring services" in the U.S. (so helpful!) found the little bastard around 205 miles up, orbiting in a way that, according to "Russian space industry" sources (the best kind of sources), makes it unlikely that its course can be corrected.

And the thing is, Roscosmos lost three navigational satellites last year (a rocket went off course—way off course—and ended up in the Pacific). What's the deal, guys? Is Putin going to have to launch these damn satellites himself? With his bare hands? Shirtless? From a horse?

[RIA Novosti; image via Shutterstock]