Decay watch : 25947 obs

From: Daniel Deak (dan.deak@sympatico.ca)
Date: Tue Feb 29 2000 - 17:39:37 PST

  • Next message: Tony Beresford: "High orbit satellite"

    Hello everyone,
    
    I observed the Ikar stage from the Globalstar Soyuz rocket make a nice
    pass this evening, Feb. 29 at 23:43 UT. Interesting visual behavior with
    short and bright flashes ( about mag 1) at about 15 deg above horizon to
    the west. As it rose, its flashes became longer but very irregular. Near
    culmination, at 30 deg elevation to the southwest, it was visible for a few
    seconds at a time. Just before shadow entry, it was visible almost all the
    time but in varying magnitude.
    
    A flash period could not be determined and the max magnitude was about
    zero. Positional data has been taken that proved this object to be on track
    but quite early, being 50 sec ahead of time with OIG elset :
    SOYUZ R/B(1)
    1 25947U 99058E   00060.90561250  .02277410  11509-4  98101-3 0  2361
    2 25947  51.9239 307.0298 0090325 197.9614 161.8315 16.12396505 20727
    
    and 47.5 sec ahead with Alan's predicted elset :
    Globlstar 31 r   6.0  3.0  0.0  4.5 d   19       298 x 179 km
    1 25947U 99058E   00061.02950056  .02438344  19284-2  99070-3 0 92345
    2 25947  51.9246 306.3631 0089701 198.1655 161.5119 16.13093800 20746
    
    Altitude was 227 km and minimum range 445 km.
    
    I won't be able to watch this one for a couple of days because of incoming
    bad weather.
    
    Cheers,
    
    Dan
    
    --
    Daniel Deak
    Drummondville, Québec
    
    COSPAR site 1746 : 45.8537°N, 72.4857°W, 90 m., UTC-5:00
    
    E-mail : dan.deak@obsat.com        ICQ : 52770063
    Site en francais sur les satellites:
    French-language satellite web site : http://www.obsat.com
    
    
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