Re: Decay of 96- 54 B = Centaur r

Alan Pickup (alan@wingar.demon.co.uk)
Sun, 16 Mar 1997 20:04:30 +0000

Further elsets have appeared from OIG:
Centaur r                                        2354 x 88 km
1 24316U 96054B   97075.54219052  .99999999 -25541-4  32599-2 0   968
2 24316  25.2064  84.1152 1490442 276.9894  66.4756 13.10553751  9090
Centaur r                                        2130 x 88 km
1 24316U 96054B   97075.61773354  .99999999 -26518-4  28660-2 0   976
2 24316  25.2321  83.7976 1363113 277.5567  66.9027 13.40077166  9105
Centaur r                                        1905 x 83 km
1 24316U 96054B   97075.69174938  .99999999 -22514-4  22598-2 0   984
2 24316  25.2364  83.4303 1235925 278.3181  67.8541 13.71681207  9116

These have equator-crossing time residuals (OIG-SatEvo) with respect to
my previous posting ("9087" evolution) of -24s, -39s and -32s which is
not too bad considering that the period is changing at more than 2
minutes per orbit. (Note that the negative residual implies that it was
running this much early with respect to my prediction.)

My latest SatEvo analysis fits the five elsets since 97075.38 with a
mean residual of 3.6s and a maximum residual of 9.4s. It suggests that
decay should occur at March 16.950 (22.48 UT) with the object in
daylight 5,000 km S of Hawaii over S Polynesia. The evolution runs...

Centaur r                                        1579 x 86 km
1 24316U 96054B   97075.76361488 3.21121971  33561+1  33891-2 0 90936
2 24316  25.1772  83.0010 1035187 278.5334  69.8890 14.18035929  9125
Centaur r                                        1247 x 86 km
1 24316U 96054B   97075.83326504 4.09350772  56922+1  37509-2 0 90930
2 24316  25.1671  82.5678 0824427 279.2743  71.5041 14.68332885  9136
Centaur r                                        837 x 86 km
1 24316U 96054B   97075.90038881 6.28469672  20666+2  45528-2 0 90936
2 24316  25.1542  82.1141 0548887 280.0504  73.8040 15.34947748  9141

Alan
-- 
 Alan Pickup | COSPAR site 2707:  55d53m48.7s N   3d11m51.2s W  156m asl
 Edinburgh   | Home:    alan@wingar.demon.co.uk      +44 (0)131 477 9144
 Scotland    | Royal Observatory: A.Pickup@roe.ac.uk +44 (0)131 668 8224