RIP #12986 and #24763

Alan Pickup (alan@wingar.demon.co.uk)
Thu, 22 May 1997 20:41:40 +0100

The final elset from OIG for #12986 was:

SL-6 r2                                          541 x 78 km
1 12986U 81113D   97141.62810591  .74584389  78850-5  30000-3 0  9452
2 12986  62.3693  94.4005 0345998 267.7248  88.4243 15.87359872117286

showing that it survived for one more rev beyond the decay I predicted
on the 21st. The drag term of 0.74584389 is certainly too low - a more
realistic value is closer to 9.0 ! Of course, most of this drag is
experienced around perigee near its southernmost point, its southern
apex.

Decay probably occurred near perigee over the S Pacific, heading towards
S Chile, at about May 21.67 (16:10 UTC).

              ---------------------------------------

To tie up one loose end, the final official elset for #24763 was:

Cosmos 2340 SL-6 plat                            147 x 131 km
1 24763U 97015C   97137.96238007  .21597439  89793-5  21767-3 0  1388
2 24763  62.8349 132.7436 0011823 112.3450 247.8775 16.50198453  5965

I suspect that decay occurred at about May 18.02, northbound over the E
Pacific to the N of Easter Island.

Alan
-- 
 Alan Pickup | COSPAR site 2707:  55d53m48.7s N   3d11m51.2s W  156m asl
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