Re: Decay space debris ID over S'pore 5/20
Alan Pickup (alan@wingar.demon.co.uk)
Sun, 24 May 1998 10:10:04 +0100
Tony Beresford <starman@camtech.net.au> writes
>This was a meteor. the duration is way too short for a satellite. The direction
>of travel is also unlikely for a satellite. There is nothing in orbits
>greater than 135 degrees inclination.
Yes, yes and no :) Yes that it was probably a meteor. Yes that the
duration is too short for a re-entry. But the direction, from SW to S,
does *not* imply a rare retrograde orbit.
I've been unable to find a decay candidate for this. The only decayer on
that day, so far as I know, is #24633 = 94- 29 AAM (STEP-2 Pegasus deb).
The OIG has yet to list it among the recent decayers, while the current
60-day decay forecast (issued on the 21st) predicts its decay on the
21st. My SatEvo analysis suggests that it decayed at about 09:00 UTC on
the 20th, but given that the final elset was issued about 38 hours
earlier, the uncertainty is ~10 hours. In fact, the orbital plane was
well away from Singapore at the time of the report (11:34 GMT=UTC) so
this cannot have been what was seen.
For the record, the final OIG-issued elset for this was
Pegasus deb AAM 429 x 346 km
1 24633U 94029AAM 98138.71574888 .05312914 00000-0 51108-1 0 5367
2 24633 81.3364 227.7027 0061332 329.2681 30.5438 15.60219406 97135
while my final SatEvo predicted elset is
Pegasus deb AAM 261 x 247 km
1 24633U 94029AAM 98140.30509314 .94890246 41998+1 11892+0 0 95313
2 24633 81.3245 225.7188 0010438 325.3153 34.6166 16.07492867 97387
For anyone interested, here is a sneak preview of the beginning of my
next SatEvo decay list...
# Designation Name ----- Decay (1998) -----
Predicted Actual?
24633 94- 29 AAM STEP-2 Pegasus deb May 20
24958 97- 58 C Sputnik-40 May 21.50
24899 97- 41 E C 2345 SL12 aux mot May 21.61
24419 86- 17 LV Mir deb May 22.0
24747 97- 10 D Zeya deb May 22.5
...
Alan
--
Alan Pickup | COSPAR site 2707: 55d53m48.7s N 3d11m51.2s W 156m asl
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