Juergen Faelker, the former IUE Spacecraft Operation Manager, read abou= t your observation and sent me this comment I am forwarding to you. Rainer Rainer, What your collegues have observed is likely to be the decommissioned IU= E spacecraft. I should mention that the S/C has not self-destroyed itsel= f. What has been done at end of life was to vent the remaining Hydrazine = (ca. 17.7 Kg), to discharge the batteries and to switch off the s-band transmitter (30 September 96 at 18:44 UT) with the goal to prevent destruction of the craft and hence, not to create unnecessary space deb= ris. Venting the hydrazine has a delta-v effect. In the case of IUE this was= primarily done to spin-up the S/C about the Roll axis (X-axis) and in= negative (-) sense after the S/C was put before in a positive (+) spin about the roll axis, i.e. to compensate for and not to introduce a very= fast spin, which would have caused a rupture of the solar array hinges.= Since no attitude control was available during the venting of the hydra= zine it was done in an uncontrolled way. S/C X-axis and the flashes observed most likely stem from the two solar ar= rays mounted along the S/C =B1 Y-axis. The structure of the IUE solar arra= ys is as follows: Each of the two fixed solar arrays has 3 sub-panels. Th= e lower and upper panels are mounted =B1 45 =B0 offset from the centre p= anel. The latter is tilted - 22.5 =B0 from the telescope + X -axis (telescop= e boresight). When the solar arrays are facing the Sun, reflections sho= uld be seen but it is rather difficult to pinpoint the relation between flashes, solar arrays and the S/C body, which is of octagonal structur= e. You may forward this info to your collegues. regards =