Re: 12044A / 38744: altitude increasing?

From: Bob Christy (bob@zarya.info)
Date: Sun Aug 12 2012 - 17:56:41 UTC

  • Next message: alberto rango: "4641 SATOBS 11 AUG 2012."

    I'll gladly accept others' wisdom regarding what the item is. I threw in 
    the adaptor idea because I spotted the one for the earlier launch and it 
    would have a low m/a, as would the APT as you point out. For about three 
    years, SpaceTrack has been in the habit of naming one of the debris 
    items as "BREEZE-M DEB (TANK)". It hasn't done that in this case but, as 
    it's an unusual grouping, there might be an element of circumspection 
    about it.
    
    44A and 44C elset values seem both to have undergone a change on Aug 10, 
    hence me wondering if the 44A/Telkom drag has increased due to the solar 
    panels being deployed. The reason for the 44C change is less obvious, 
    unless I have joined up the wrong sets of points, in which case there 
    might be a fifth object in there that wasn't picked up visually and 
    hasn't been catalogued.
    
    Have any observations been made that suggest Telkom 3 has brightened? 
    There's nothing in recent reportings to the list. It wouldn't be more 
    than about one magnitude.
    
    Element sets may still be a little confused despite SpaceTrack's 
    positive action in re-arranging and naming the objects. Sit tight and 
    wait is probably the best course of action unless an observer spots 
    something.
    
    Bob Christy
    
    
    On 12/08/2012 17:23, Jonathan McDowell wrote:
    > Bob, SES-3 was a US bus which required an adapter. The closer analogy is to
    > 2009-007 which paired an Ekspress bus with a Yakhta/Kazsat bus - I am pretty
    > sure no adapter is required with this pairing, by design.
    >   So perhaps the rapidly decaying object is an unexpected piece of debris
    > associated with the failure?
    >   Or, if the APT vented its prop, perhaps it does have a small mass/area ratio -
    > can you compare to other low-perigee APTs like 37800? An empty torus with no
    > engine hardware will definitely come down faster than the rest, I estimate
    > M/A is 4 times smaller than the Briz
    >    Do you think the flattening out of 44C is real? That might imply it's actually
    > the Telkom payload reported to be now responding to ground command.
    >
    >   - Jonathan
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