Re: High Spy (was Re: Unknown - Pageos balloon fragments)

Phillip Clark (psclark@dircon.co.uk)
Wed, 12 May 1999 09:34:19 +0100 (BST)

On Wed, 12 May 1999, B Magnus B{ckstr|m wrote:
> Cosmos 2344!  It is in a 1490 x 2750 km orbit inclined at 63.4 degrees.
> It is rumored to be a large (c. 20 ton) optical recon satellite.
> Dim, but usually one-power visible at ranges of about 2400 km (which is
> what I get on high passes at my latitude) -- a beautiful slow wanderer.

Actually, the mass of ~20 tonnes is a piece of total garbage, published 
in Aviation Week at the time of the launch.

The LEO payload capability of the Proton-K as ~20 tonnes and Av Week0
assumed that the four-stage vehicle could put the same mass into the high 
orbit quoted above !

The satellite is a cylinder, diameter ~2.3 metres, length ~9 metres.   
Using the launch vehicle's capability to this orbit the mass might be up 
to 7 tonnes, but since it is based upon the Lonomosov satellite which had 
a launch mass of ~5.9 tonnes I think that ~6 tonnes is a more realistic 
figure.

Pity no-one at Av Week bothered to sit down and do a few basic 
calculations before rushing into print with a really bad mass estimate !

Phillip Clark

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Phillip S Clark                                       25 Redfern Avenue
Molniya Space Consultancy                             Whitton
Compiler/Publisher, Worldwide Satellite Launches      Middx   TW4 5NA
                                                      U.K.

Specialist in "space archeology" - the older and more obscure the more 
interesting it is !
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