RE: Milstar 3 Centaur
Ed Cannon (edcannonutaustin@netscape.net)
22 May 99 14:35:38 CDT
Ted Molczan wrote:
] The orbit posted by Anthony Beresford:
]
] 1 99010U 99139.43272912 .00000000 00000-0 00000+0 0 02
] 2 99010 28.3800 241.2335 2130000 63.6428 296.3566 9.66794000 05
]
] is in excellent agreement with the circumstances of the Milstar launch
] from Cape Canaveral on 30 Apr 99, at 16:30 UTC.
]
] The mean motion suggests that this is the Centaur stage, not the
] Milstar.
For at least the next week, this object (using the orbital data above)
is making good, near-perigee passes over the southern USA. I think that
reasonable estimated intrinsic magnitudes for a Centaur are Quicksat +2.0,
Molczan +3.5. It's likely to be tumbling. I was going to look for it
this morning but our morning low clouds prevented it, in spite of seeing
a monster HST pass about 25 minutes earlier. (Given the mostly cloudy
conditions, this had to have been one of the brightest HST passes that
I've ever seen.)
Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA
(The netscape.net address is temporary.)
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