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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