SCC announced yesterday the decay of 1985-103D (#16223) MOLNIYA 1-66 RB 2 on 13 January without earlier predictions. The last five ELSETs show that SCC had in December apparently lost the object for a couple of days (last ELSET 02353.405...). The next released ELSET showed an epoch of 03003.979... and a MM = 2.431... and a 171.66 / 33825.84 km high eccentricity orbit - the "normal" case. 8 days later (03011.278...) the MM has dramatically changed to 13.31... a showed #16223 in a 143.150/1448.90 km Orbit with an extreme high B* (10071-1). The last issued ELSET - only one rev later - (0311.352...) had a MM of 14.10.... and also an extreme B* (32095-1). Decay predictions with these two ELSETs deliver a lifetime of only a few hours after epoch. SCC'S decay date - 13 January - seems unrealistic. But all the case is a little bit mysterious. I don't believe that the orbit decayed within 8 days from MM 2.4... to 13.3... This type of object is very well investigated, it shows often catastrophic behaviour but not in this sense. It seems possible that the cause is not the rocket stage but the SCC with tracking or identification problems. Harro Harro.Zimmer@t-online.de Berlin, Germany ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jan 15 2003 - 03:07:05 EST