Iridium 9 (97-030C) is flashing.

From: Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Date: Sat Dec 09 2000 - 00:10:02 PST

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    In "observations from Netherlands" Paul Maley mentioned that
    with respect to a flasher that he saw, Iridium 9 (24838, 
    97-030C) was at the right place at the right time.  When I
    checked for candidates, it seemed to me that also it was 
    going in the correct direction, north to south.  Be that as 
    it may, I was curious and checked to see if Ir 9 would pass 
    here, and it did, and I saw four flashes, two about +0 or -1 
    at about 00:08:39.26 and 00:08:47.55.  Of the three flashes 
    for which I got clicks, the period for the two cycles was 
    about 8.35 seconds.  If it wasn't Ir 9, I'll add my "wonder
    what it was?" to Paul's!  By the way, a couple of months 
    ago Iridium 9 maneuvers were discussed on SeeSat:
    
     http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Sep-2000/0248.html
     http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Sep-2000/0264.html
     http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Oct-2000/0145.html
     http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Oct-2000/0159.html
     http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Oct-2000/0161.html
     http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Oct-2000/0233.html
    
    It now seems possible to me that the deorbit maneuvers 
    mentioned by Chris Peat in the last of those messages may 
    never be completed, but it is in an orbit about 160 km (100 
    miles) below the operational one.
    
    Iridium 14 (24836, 97-030A) followed less than two minutes 
    after Ir 9 and also flashed a couple of times -- directly 
    above the Moon, and later Iridium 11 (24842, 97-030G) also 
    flashed a couple of times.  The 97-030 launch seems to have 
    run into some really bad luck.  My fourth Iridium of the 
    night was a double minor (+3) flare by Iridium 12 as it was
    heading down in the north.
    
    Saw the same ISS-Shuttle pass as Paul Gabriel!  From here I 
    thought they were a little brighter than Saturn.  I 
    recorded shadow entry time of about 00:30:14.7, pretty 
    close agreement with Paul, considering that I was observing 
    from the UT Austin campus, and there was a bit of variable 
    cloud in evidence here.
    
    This week I've seen a couple of flares from SERT 2 (04327,
    70-009A), which I have been expecting since it did that so
    consistently on many passes last winter.  It brightens to +2 
    for 15 to 30 seconds north of culmination.  The range was 
    more than 1100 km last night.
    
    Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA
    
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