During an attempt to estimate the lifetime of the recently launched Delta III
dummy payload (DM-F3) and its RB I found this strange discrepancy:
Payload: Zylinder 4348 kg, 1.7 x 2.0 m : Ballistic coefficient (B): 503.4
under the assumption of a Drag coefficient (D): 2.2. The international
designation and the Catalog number: 2000-048A - # 26475 (DM-F3)
RB: Zylinder 2476 kg dry mass, 4.0 x 8.0 m, B: 71.7 also under the assump-
tion of D: 2.2. International designation and catalog number:
2000-048B - #26476.
Now the problem: For the nearly identical orbits the RB must have a very much
larger drag then the massive and small payload. But the last released ELSETs
shows a reverse behavior:
Catalog number Epoch ndot Bstar
26475 00238.369... 0.00108719 0.25111e-002
26475 00238.122... 0.00101159 0.24834e-002
25476 00239.115... 0.00003254 0.84746e-004
25476 00238.266... 0.00002080 0.58611e-004
My preliminary conclusion: SpaceCom has misidentified the objects. #26475
is the RB and #26476 is the dummy payload. I think it would possible to
make a final decision based on visual observations.
BTW: My calculations based on a random tumbling of the objects. But also if
you assume a specific attitude the conclusion remains unchanged.
Harro
Harro.Zimmer@t-online.de
Berlin, Germany
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Aug 26 2000 - 06:54:26 PDT