Re: Okean-O Rk a Flasher

Ed Cannon (ecannon@mail.utexas.edu)
Fri, 23 Jul 1999 03:30:10 -0500

Way back on July 18 Don Gardner <Mir16609@aol.com> wrote:

> Viewing conditions tonight are pretty terrible.  Through a clear 
> area in the haze I was able to observe the Okean-O Rk for about 
> 15 seconds.  It was flashing in a pattern similar to Globalstar 
> 36 r (25625, 99004E) - 3 quick flashes and a pause in about 1 
> second.  The flashes were about a +2.0 mag.  These were observed 
> at 02:28:30 UTC, 18 July.

Last night I watched it (25861, 99-39B) at one-power (neat!) and 
saw the 0.5 second period again, but Mike McCants observed it 
with his telescope and, if I understood correctly (I really don't 
want to put words in his mouth!), said it had secondary maxima 
between the primaries -- that is, two pairs of maxima per second.  
That doesn't change the fundamental period, but it makes it even 
more interesting.

Okean-O itself (25860, 99-39A) was again an easy one-power object 
for much of its pass.  It weighs over six metric tons (6150 kg), 
but I haven't been able to find its dimensions yet.  There's an 
image of it on this page:

 http://www.okean-o.dp.ua/en_satellite.html#General

Maybe someone who can read Russian can find on this other page 
about its orbital parameters whether it's already in its final 
orbit or in a parking orbit:

 http://www.okean-o.dp.ua/ru_page-1.html

Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA