A US asteroid observer caught a satellite while doing asteroid astrometry. From three good position Bill Gray was able to calculate in orbit with his FIND-ORB programme. > Perigee 2003 Jun 22.959073 TT >Epoch 2003 Jun 23.0 TT = JDT 2452813.5 Find_Orb >M 28.67327 (2000.0) P Q >n 700.59008011 Peri. 162.38584 0.32602649 -0.84590064 >a 27099.473 km Node 266.86051 0.80849150 0.48088681 >e 0.7290069 Incl. 25.00662 0.48994714 -0.23065117 >P 739.93m H 34.3 G 0.15 q 7343.769 km > From 4 observations 2003 Jun. 23-23; RMS error 1.801 arcseconds >Elements in TLE form: >1 99999U 99999A 03174.00000000 -.00000000 +00000-0 +00000-0 0 00010 >2 99999 25.0066 266.9100 7290069 162.3848 28.6733 1.94172560000009 I cannot match the observations to any object in alldat.tle, or to JE0023, IMP8, Geotail, Integral ( from HORIZONS or MPC SPACE JUNK page ). As Bill remarks the orbit is strongly suggestive of a GEO transfer, from a cape canaveral launch, though the perigee is rather high. The object was magnitude 17-18 and travelling at 6 minof arc per minute towards PA 59 degrees ( NE ). Any suggestions as to which "classified" launch this might be. Tony Beresford ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jun 25 2003 - 01:36:04 EDT