GRO days near an end?

From: Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri Jan 14 2000 - 01:32:23 PST

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    According to NASA Watch -- about which I know not much -- there
    are rumors that deorbiting of GRO is being considered (story 
    marked "new" and dated Jan. 13):
    
     http://www2.nasawatch.com/nasa/watch.html
    
    I would have sworn that there was a link to that from Space 
    Today, but I can't find one now.  I don't read NASA Watch, so I 
    was led to it yesterday from some other site.  
    
    Anyway, out of curiosity I got recent GRO elements.  If I'm 
    reading them right, inclination is decreasing, eccentricity is 
    INcreasing, and mean motion is increasing.  Increasing drag is 
    normal, but I wonder if the magnitude of the change is natural.  
    Do these add up to a natural evolution of GRO's orbit?  
    Anything unusual?
    
    GRO
    1 21225U 91027B   00009.17673878  .00005217  00000-0  19735-3 0  7561
    2 21225  28.4615 346.2801 0004500  56.1180 303.9846 15.24578613368950
    GRO
    1 21225U 91027B   00010.15864045 +.00005405 +00000-0 +20468-3 0 07675
    2 21225 028.4613 339.6317 0004518 067.8481 292.2594 15.24589794369108
    GRO
    1 21225U 91027B   00011.20599414 +.00005656 +00000-0 +21445-3 0 07783
    2 21225 028.4609 332.5395 0004715 079.0186 281.0939 15.24602400369263
    GRO
    1 21225U 91027B   00012.18787967 +.00005940 +00000-0 +22556-3 0 07660
    2 21225 028.4605 325.8920 0004791 088.6918 271.4225 15.24614959369411
    GRO
    1 21225U 91027B   00013.16975521  .00006408  00000-0  24385-3 0  7587
    2 21225  28.4597 319.2448 0004864  98.0634 262.0531 15.24629351369568
    
    It was mostly cloudy here Thursday evening.  I watched a "sucker
    hole" close up just a few minutes before the best part of the
    ETS 6 pass.  Also didn't get to see a good GRO pass.
    
    Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA
    
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