It was a 250-kilogram (550 lb) spacecraft, which was built by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, and was used as a radar calibration target for anti-ballistic missile tests.

[1] Kosmos 501 was successfully launched into low Earth orbit at 05:59:57 UTC on 12 July 1972.

[2] The launch took place from Site 86/4 at Kapustin Yar,[3] and used a Kosmos-2I 63SM carrier rocket.

[4] The North American Aerospace Defense Command assigned it the catalogue number 06099.

[5] It was operated in an orbit with a perigee of 215 kilometres (134 mi), an apogee of 2,071 kilometres (1,287 mi), 48.4 degrees of inclination, and an orbital period of 108.2 minutes.