Moln 3-28 r2 lasts
Daniel Deak (dan.deak@sympatico.ca)
Thu, 24 Jun 1999 13:34:02 -0400
Hi everybody,
Molniya 3-28 r2 (#16686) is staying in orbit longer than
everyone anticipated. The last elset from OIG :
SL-6 R/B(2)
1 16686U 86031D 99175.56476269 .18095659 00000-0 46420-4 0 5158
2 16686 61.7420 149.9242 1104500 261.4562 86.0957 14.09154316 85166
Curiously, the drag term (n-dot/2) has been steadily decreasing since yesterday :
SL-6 R/B(2)
1 16686U 86031D 99174.99252520 .38835887 19110-4 43838-3 0 5080
2 16686 61.7439 151.6420 1170110 261.4203 85.3335 13.86536484 85083
SL-6 R/B(2)
1 16686U 86031D 99175.06457371 .23686111 20056-4 29049-3 0 5100
2 16686 61.7403 151.4498 1154427 261.2564 85.5262 13.89682777 85090
SL-6 R/B(2)
1 16686U 86031D 99175.27976839 .20563951 20678-4 25989-3 0 5111
2 16686 61.7459 150.7833 1114541 261.2994 85.7683 13.98771514 85127
SL-6 R/B(2)
1 16686U 86031D 99175.35126488 .18441697 20915-4 24138-3 0 5137
2 16686 61.7485 150.5663 1103292 261.3328 86.0467 14.01169529 85135
Is it normal behaviour for this type of orbit ?
Last night I tried to see it using Alan's predicted elset :
Moln 3-28 r2 1091 x 73 km
1 16686U 86031D 99175.20045012 2.62166313 27577+1 11245-2 0 95033
2 16686 61.6944 150.9932 0731270 262.2395 89.4029 14.95167339 85112
I saw two other sats but not 16686 10 minutes before and after predicted time.
I realized this morning that, using OIG elset, it passed at 05:39 UT instead of
05:23 and was around 20 degrees higher in elevation !
If it has not decayed by this evening, I will try again tonight.
--
Daniel Deak
St-Bonaventure, Québec
COSPAR site 1745 : 45.9483°N, 72.6539°W, 58 m., UTC-4:00
E-mail : dan.deak@sympatico.ca
French language satellite web site : http://www3.sympatico.ca/dan.deak/