BLITS (Ball Lens In The Space) is a Russian satellite launched on September 17, 2009, as a secondary payload on a Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.The satellite is totally passive and spherical, and is tracked using satellite laser ranging (SLR) by the International Laser Ranging Service. The design of BLITS is based on the optical Luneburg lens concept. The retroreflector is a multilayer glass sphere; it provides uniform reflection characteristics when viewed within a very wide range of angles, and can provide a cross-section sufficient for observations at low to medium orbit heights. A similar design was already tested on a smaller laser reflector carried on board of the METEOR-3M spacecraft launched on December 10, 2001.