re: STS leading Mir
Philip Chien (kc4yer@amsat.org)
Tue, 9 Apr 1996 19:22:16 -0400
Walter Nissen dk058@cleveland.freenet.edu asked:
(re: STS-74 and Mir post undocking)
>The purpose of this exercise is not to beat you around the head until you
>agree that those who didn't see the satellites know more about what the
>observer saw than the observer does. I'm merely arguing that there seems to
>be considerable doubt about the identifications.
Agreed, determining that one satellite has to be the shuttle just because
it's dimmer/brighter than Mir is a shaky proposition at best.
>Nobody has sent me better elsets (hint, hint). If we don't get some soon, we
>should start looking around. Also, I've received no comments about the
>discriminatory value of the observed colors.
Looking through my keps archive the best post-undocking elements were
actually posed to the seesat listserver:
Ted Molczan said:
>Below are the predicted element sets required after the undocking, which
>took place this morning. Assuming that the separation burn and two orbit
>adjustment burns go as planned, after 14:30 UTC, the shuttle's orbit
>will be as shown below. There are no additional shuttle manoeuvres
>scheduled before deorbit on Monday. Mir has not manoeuvred.
>
>Mir Complex post undocking
>1 16609U 86017A 95322.45642709 .00003885 00000-0 46559-4 0 9179
>2 16609 51.6410 104.9926 0002556 336.7720 23.3319 15.58152580557006
>
>STS 74 after OA1 and OA2 burns
>1 23714U 95061A 95322.64808599 .00019322 00000-0 20677-3 0 9192
>2 23714 51.6450 104.0230 0009137 266.4267 93.5852 15.75497495 977
>
>These elements were taken from the shuttle web page:
>http://shuttle.nasa.gov
Philip Chien, Earth News - space writer and consultant PCHIEN@IDS.NET
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Roger, go at throttle up CHR$(32) the final frontier