RE: USA 129 3 min earlier

Tristan Cools (tcools@nic.INbe.net)
Tue, 12 Aug 1997 22:50:16 +0200 (MET DST)

>Chris K. wrote a few days ago:
>>
>> USA 129         15.0  3.0  0.0  5.1 v
>> 1 24680U 96072  A 97209.91202734 0.00010400  00000-0  10577-3 0    00
>> 2 24680  97.8480 270.6152 0538000 171.1630 188.8368 14.75774875    03
>>
>> 96-  72 A 97-08-07 03:20:00.0  ck                        mag4 4 minutes
>> early (flew) ??other obj incl 98'.
>>

And Lutz Schindler wrote:

>I think you saw another satellite.
>
>With the same element set today I took two positons.
>
>    1
>   52.3261  -10.6761      263.    Lutz Schindler
>USA 129         15.0  3.0  0.0  5.1 v
>1 24680U 96072  A 97209.91202734 0.00010400  00000-0  10577-3 0    00
>2 24680  97.8480 270.6152 0538000 171.1630 188.8368 14.75774875    03
>  1 97  8 10 20 54 17.3  15 45.0   6.94 2000
>  1 97  8 10 20 54 57.8  14 51.9  19.17 2000
>  0  0
>
>With FITELEM you see, USA 129 is running only 31.5 seconds earlier.
>The residuals:
>
> 1 222 20 54 17.3 -31.5 15 45.2  6.98  15 45.0  6.94  -.05  -.04   .06  48
> 1 222 20 54 57.8 -31.4 14 51.7 19.12  14 51.9 19.17   .05   .05   .07  51
>
>
>lschindler@lschindler.s-link.de   / Lutz Schindler  / +49-5308-990250
>                                                      +49-177-2423275
>
>## CrossPoint v3.1 R ##


Today(aug 12) I was looking for USA129 and found an object in a similar
orbit as USA129 with glints to mag -2. If this was USA129 then, with the
same elements as above it was 3 minutes early.  I couldn't make any
positional measurements because of twilight but it must have been(roughly)
at the same track of USA129.

Mir and Progress M35 were seperated by 121.6s today at 20:10:46UTC.

There were some nice transits of 97-24A/24805/Kosmos 2343 in the past days.
Today at 20:15:42UTC it was mag 0 and moving fast at only 241km.


Greetings,
Tristan Cools
tcools@nic.INbe.net
BWGS member(Belgian Working Group Satellites)

Damse Vaart:    3.2478E/51.2277N 3.75m
Rijckevelde:    3.2856E/51.2045N 6.25m
Brugge     :    3.2166E/51.2104N 5m