Derek Breit, Mike McCants, and Brad Young, contributed observations used to
determine the following element set:
STSS Demo r 152 X 258 km
1 35939U 09052C 10049.09871335 .06452465 00000-0 74322-3 0 01
2 35939 59.6019 272.5869 0080555 358.8170 1.2748 16.25055528 06
Arc 20100217.07-0218.12 WRMS resid 0.160 totl 0.025 xtrk
Using Satevo 0.51, I estimate decay late Feb 18 or early Feb 19 UTC.
Northern hemisphere observers south of about 45 N have evening visibility.
It will be interesting to see if it survives long enough for Derek to see it
one last time. Satevo propagated the above to a decay a couple of hours
earlier, near 00:30 UTC on Feb 19, so it seems a long-shot, but who knows?
Expect the object to run at least several minutes early tomorrow night,
relative the above elements. Below are the final three revs propagated by
Satevo, which could prove more realistic than the above for the final hours
of orbit. Due to the object's low altitude, its path across the sky will be
very sensitive to prediction time error. Comparing between the predictions
using the above elements and one of the Satevo below, will roughly bracket
the range of pass times and tracks.
138 X 191 km
1 35939U 09052C 10049.83416816 .20581907 00000-0 54095-3 0 90006
2 35939 59.5972 269.2398 0040963 359.7442 0.2537 16.40241322 128
134 X 179 km
1 35939U 09052C 10049.89507042 .28339881 00000-0 54252-3 0 90009
2 35939 59.5964 268.9585 0034581 359.8222 0.1766 16.43160532 139
128 X 161 km
1 35939U 09052C 10049.95584045 .51023823 00000-0 59030-3 0 90005
2 35939 59.5952 268.6764 0025550 359.9004 0.0991 16.47663536 143
Ted Molczan
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