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

[2] It spent its two-year operational life at 80E giving early warning coverage of Russia, China, North Korea, the Middle East and some of Europe.

A Proton-K carrier rocket with a DM-2 upper stage was used to perform the launch, which took place at 23:59 UTC on 26 June 2008.

[2] The United States Space Command assigned it the Satellite Catalog Number 33108.

[4] Kosmos 2440 itself started drifting off station in February 2010 giving an operational life of less than two years.