In Jonathan's Space Report, No. 577, Jonathan writes: >China launched a navigation satellite towards geostationary orbit >on Feb 2. The CZ-3A rocket put the fourth Beidou payload in a >192 x 41772 km x 25.0 deg supersynchronous transfer orbit. >As of Feb 24, the Beidou satellite - reportedly the first of a new >generation - remained in this transfer orbit and had not moved to >geostationary, suggesting the possibility that it may have failed. >Feb 2 1628 Beidou 2A Chang Zheng 3A Xichang Navigation 03A The NCat is 30323 - designation is 07 3A. Ed and I watched this payload last night for about 5 minutes as it descended from over 3000 miles to below 2300 miles and went into the Earth's shadow. Initially it was magnitude 7 or 8 with slow fluctuations. As it went farther east, it got gradually brighter until it reached naked eye visibility at magnitude 3 for about 30 seconds before disappearing. Shadow entry was about altitude 50, azimuth 115, range 2500 miles. (Feb. 26, 3:06 UT) Mike McCants Austin, Tx Lat 30.3, Long 97.8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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