The satellite is designed to identify missile launches using infrared telescopes.

[2] Kosmos 2397 was launched from Site 81/24 at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

A Proton-K carrier rocket with a DM-2 upper stage was used to perform the launch, which took place at 04:23 UTC on 24 April 2003.

[2] The United States Space Command assigned it the Satellite Catalog Number 27775.

It started drifting eastwards in June 2003 and had reached 155E by November 2003.