Re: tumbling rocket and satellite

From: Alain Figer via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2019 11:36:08 +0200
Hi Tristan,

> Most Centaur rockets have always been steady (according to my own
observations)

I am somewhat surprised by such a statement, since it is not what I have
been currently noticing.
See for instance several threads in my blog at :
https://www.flickr.com/groups/satellites_artificiels/

More exhaustively, the russian site 'astroguard.ru' (MMT data) lists
multiple examples of flashing Atlas Centaur rockets.
Concerning 2007-060B their graph shows how the rotation period has been
decreasing for the last years ;  their last measurement is at 48.72s for
the rotation period (twice your photometric period).

See also the info by the same russian site about Landsat 4 1982-072A.
They measured a rotation period at 16.7 s in 2018 but observed the rocket
as 'Aperiodic'  in other circumstances too.

Regards

Alain Figer
Gometz: 48.67 N ; 2.13 E ; 170m a.s.l.
Vars: 44.57 N ; 6.68 E ; 1850m a.s.l.


Le sam. 20 avr. 2019 à 10:28, tristan.cools--- via Seesat-l <
seesat-l_at_satobs.org> a écrit :

> Hi all,
>
> Most Centaur rockets have always been steady(according to my own
> observations) but I was surprised to see 07-60B/32379 as a nice regular
> varying object with a period of about 23s.  I think I will follow this
> object to see it's future flash behaviour.  Maybe this has already been
> reported...
>
> Another object, is the Landsat 4 satellite(82-72A/13367), no exact period
> measured but around 30s with sharp and round maxima.  In my old records I
> had a notice written that this satellite did have a mechanism to be
> retrieved by the Space Shuttle.  Well, it is too late for that, but only
> one satellite I think has ever been retrieved and re-launched I remember.
>
> greetings,
> Tristan Cools
> Belgian Working Group Satellites.
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> Seesat-l mailing list
> http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
>
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Received on Sat Apr 20 2019 - 04:37:08 UTC

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