Acceleration Report 11 May '96 : 96- 17 B = 23828

Kurt Jonckheere (kjonckheere@unicall.be)
Sat, 11 May 1996 15:51:20 +0000 

My latest MMjump-run showed only one object with a jump in Mean Motion,
the latest IRS rocket 96- 17 B = 23828

[Also 86- 37 B = 16728 is doing a bit strange last month. (more tomorrow)]

Both have to be observed as soon as possible
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An overview of all IRS rockets.  All the three previous objects have
been flashing after launch.  

1988-21B   18961 rocket IRS 1A        03/17/88  07H12M A1 VOSTOK       
        flashing till Mar '89
1991-61B   21689 rocket IRS 1B        08/29/91  06H43M A1 VOSTOK       
        flashing till Aug '92
1994-68B   23324 fourth stage IRS P2  10/15/94  05H05M PSLV            
        still flashing in Apr '96 , period about 25 seconds

1996-17B   23828 fourth stage IRS P3  03/21/96  04H53M PSLB            
        first observations: Steady or long period.

Latest observations of 23828:
96- 17 B 96-04-27 21:03      TC                       S or lp, mag +5.5
96- 17 B 96-05-08 20:48      LB                50     dtm, mag 6->7

Between it has been put into orbit and the beginning of May, the semi-
major axis remained nearly constant at 7202.62 km.
Since May 2, the semi-major axis started to decrease suddenly:
96 May 2 : 7202.62 km
96 May 6 : 7202.57
96 May 7 : 7202.52
96 May 8 : 7202.46
96 May 9 : 7202.41
96 May 10: 7202.38
This means a decrease of about 250 m in one week!

It is time to check out now if these rockets also can have residual 
fuel and fuel-leaks leading to an acceleration of the rotation!
The previous ones didn't do, but also had no such a jump in Mean Motion.   
Leo indicated it as difficult to measure (dtm) at May 8.  Maybe this
was caused by the leak??  

Who will check it?

latest elements from OIG:
1 23828U 96017B   96131.12360677 +.00003762 +00000-0 +17686-2 0 00313
2 23828 098.7940 206.2524 0031935 104.8809 255.5908 14.20328009007082

Happy observing!

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          Kurt Jonckheere (kjonckheere@unicall.be)   51.2 N  2.9 E 
      observations collector for the Belgian Working Group Satellites: 
  Send your observations of flashing satellites, preferrably in the correct
       PPAS format to obs@physics.oxford.ac.uk or obs@physics.ox.ac.uk
                I Dreamed I Dream      --       Sonic Youth
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