Time for some armchair satellite observing, as it is well and truly clouded over tonight! Thanks to Bjoern Gimle for his analysis of the elsets for Iridium 5 and Iridium 51, and to Tony Beresford for filling in some of the missing elsets. elsets 674, 675 (2 versions) and 676 match nicely for Iridium 5 pre the mix-up. elset 524 matches well with earlier elsets for Iridium 51. all elsets seen since the mix-up - 526, 527, 528 (2 versions), 529, 530 and 678, 679, 680, 683, 684 seem to relate to the same object, which, as Bjoern notes, does not match perfectly with Iridium 51 before the mix-up. elset 525 seems to be the oddball, especailly with its Bstar term of zero: Iridium 51 4.0 1.8 0.0 6.0 d 13 751 x 745 km 1 25262U 98018A 01221.85670839 -.00002954 00000-0 00000-0 0 5251 2 25262 86.4512 218.3167 0004190 90.6614 269.5641 14.43136998177717 This *could* just be discounted as a rogue elset, leaving Iridium 51 as having had a slight orbital adjustment and Iridium 5 as the "lost" bird. However, another possibility is that the two satellites have indeed exchanged positions, and that elset 525 represented the start of the process of raising Iridium 51 in prepration to replace Iridium 5 early on August 11 when Iridium 51 reached the correct slot in the orbital plane (Iridium 51 was "lapping" Iridium 5 around every 11 days, if my calculations are correct). The post mix-up elsets being reported for both could then represent Iridium 5 having been lowered to the engineering orbit, leaving Iridium 51 as the "lost" object. When OIG access is restored, maybe all will be clear! -- Rod Sladen, Beeston, Nottinghamshire, UK 52.9230N, 1.2190W ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Aug 18 2001 - 15:30:18 PDT