Re: STS-75 TSS Tether Break
Philip Chien (kc4yer@amsat.org)
Sun, 25 Feb 1996 21:36:02 -0400
Bill Bard said:
>At approx 0130 UTC 2/26/96, the tether on TSS from the shuttle broke in
>the boom
>on the shuttle. Below are the latest shuttle elements. The TSS was reported
>leaving the shuttle at 100 foot per second I think.
>
>STS-75
>1 23801U 96012A 96056.75146181 .00000589 00000-0 17059-5 0 81
>2 23801 28.4682 265.2922 0005470 312.1115 238.8039 15.91673418 473
geeze - I knew I shouldn't have removed that piece of the tether from the
end of the reel!!!
According to NASA Public Affairs most of the 20 km. were reeled out, with
less than 10 meters to go. The satellite got an 80 foot per second boost
from the momentum transfer, and ended up in a 324 x 171 nmi orbit. It's
got about 20 km. of tether hanging from its end.
Right now the plane of the TSS's orbit will make it visible from the
southern hemisphere and I'd suspect that keps will be available soon
through the normal channels. If it stays up long enough to be visible this
will certainly be an unusual looking satellite!
The TSS S-Band transponder transmits on 2260 Mhz., but would be limited by
the lifetime of its batteries (about 2 days or so)
Philip Chien, Earth News - space writer and consultant PCHIEN@IDS.NET
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Roger, go at throttle up CHR$(32) the final frontier