Cosmos 1360 r (Zenit-2) = 25407 = 98-45 B update

JONCKHEERE KURT VE131 (kurt.jonckheere@btmaa.bel.alcatel.be)
Wed, 05 Aug 1998 11:39:57 +0200 (MET-DST)

Update about : Cosmos 1360 r (Zenit-2) = 25407 = 98-45 B.

First of all thanks to all people who made accurate timings of this
interesting object and reported them.  This is appreciated very much!
Thanks to these worldwide observations we have a timing on every day.
Hope we can go on for some time !

According to the latest observations, it seems that the minimum of the
period was reached around August 1, and that the period is going up
slowly again. (see below)
So the residual fuel venting out - which was very probably causing this 
acceleration of the rocket - has stopped and the rotation of the
rocket will slow down by the interaction with the magnetic field
of the earth from now on.

Overview
  date        period
> July 29.96  4.543 +-0.04 sec (3,4,5 and 20 periods, Pierre Neirinck)
  July 30.16  3.78  +-0.1  sec (Walter Nissen)
  July 30.17  3.5              (Eric Vondra)
> July 31.87  2.791 +-0.01     (4,6,10,44 Pierre Neirinck)
> July 31.94  2.771 +-0.01     (4,6,8,10,56 Pierre Neirinck)
  Aug   1.8   2.75             (Bjorn Gimle)
  Aug   1.9   2.79             (Russell Eberst) 
  Aug   2.92  2.755 +-0.015    (Pierre Neirinck)
  Aug   3.9   2.782            (Alan Pickup)
  Aug   4.90  2.801 +-0.003    (Kurt Jonckheere)


SL-16 R/B (elements coming from OIG)
1 25407U 98045B   98216.23775828 -.00000048  00000-0  00000+0 0    74
2 25407  71.0117 116.5852 0009751 265.8836  94.1170 14.14845563   974

Greetings,

Kurt Jonckheere