Molniya decay

Bjorn Gimle (bjorn@tt-tech.se)
Fri, 17 Nov 95 10:41:15 MET

The decay of Molniya #12066 is still accelerating quite slowly.
I expect decay on Saturday evening UT, possibly visible from western US
on its last orbit, but the decay is most likely to occur near
the perigee at 62 deg. S ?

I am using a considerably improved numerical extrapolation, not
integration. I don't know its accuracy for elliptic orbits, and
will try to fit NPOE parameters to several elsets, when I have
Friday's elsets for #12066.

Element set number = 5
1 12066U 80092A   95320.52366060  .50178716  13166-4  78414-3 0  3493
2 12066  62.2621  35.7644 1958004 269.0288  68.7286 12.05366539 19284
Element set number = 3
1 12066U 80092A   95320.44055109  .54045411  12839-4  75055-3 0  3485
2 12066  62.2605  35.9417 2003278 269.0113  69.4562 11.95877642 19272
Element set number = 1
1 12066U 80092A   95320.27152076  .43604535  12224-4  85362-3 0  3472
2 12066  62.2800  36.2941 2081551 268.7860  67.7324 11.76810637 19255


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== bjorn.gimle@online.dextel.se ;  59.22371 N, 18.22857 E ==
== bjorn@tt-tech.se                                       ==
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