NOSS 2-3 search orbit

Ted Molczan (molczan@fox.nstn.ca)
Sun, 19 May 1996 23:15:16 -0400

It appears that the NOSS 2-3 payload has manoeuvred. Yesterday, an
observer saw what he believes was the payload, but it was three 
minutes early. Today three observers did not see the object, even
though they allowed a generous margin of error in the predicted
time.

The following orbit assumes that a manoeuvre to an NOSS orbit
took place about mid-way between yesterday's sighting and today's
non-sightings. I made no attempt to make this element set predictive,
so it is good for searching *only*. I would like to have made it
predictive, but I could not reconcile yesterday's obs with any of
the detailed manoeuvre possibilities I analysed.

1 99990U 99990  A 96139.84240290  .00000000  00000-0  00000-0 0    02
2 99990  63.4280 254.2973 0000000   0.0000   0.0000 13.40260000    09

bye for now