I believe I have finally made some sense of the various elsets issued for the five objects from the Shenzhou launch. My surprising conclusion is that possibly none the elsets published under the designation #25956 = 99- 61 A is for Shenzhou itself. The initial elsets issued for #25956 (epochs 99324.30-99324.55) relate to the object that became #25959 = 99- 61 D. This was in an eccentric orbit that decayed from 508x194 km to 409x181 km by the final elset at 99325.50. My calculations suggest that this should have decayed at about 13:00 UTC today, November 22. All the elsets for #25957 = 99- 61 B, with the exceptions of its first elset and those between epochs of 99324.60 and 99325.29, relate to the same object which I presume to be the Long March 2F rocket. The elsets for #25956 since epoch 99324.6, and the initial elset for #25960 (epoch 99325.16) also relate to this object. It is the object that was observed by Ruben Velasco on Nov 21, and the first of the two objects spotted by Jim Hale later on that day. Its orbit has contracted from 326x197 km at 99324.48 to 303x192 km by 99326.53. This should decay about November 28. The elsets for #25957 between the epochs of 99324.60 and 99325.29 relate to the object that became #25960 = 99- 61 E since epoch 99325.44. I suspect that the earlier elsets for this relate to the real Shenzhou craft and that the later ones, still being issued under #25960, relate to the Shenzhou Orbital Module detached from Shenzhou before re-entry (the "cabinet" in the China Daily account). This was the second of the two objects observed by Jim Hale on the 21st. This (as Shenzhou) was in a 332x205 km orbit when first tracked as #25957 at 99324.60 and was in a 315x201 km orbit by 99326.78. This is decaying more slowly than any of the other Shenzhou objects and may decay about December 1. Contrary to one of my remarks yesterday, all the elsets for #25958 = 99- 61 C relate to the one object whose orbit contracted from 450x188 km at epoch 99324.42 to 330x155 km by 99325.49. It probably decayed at about 20h UTC on November 21. If I am correct, only #25957, the rocket, and #25960, the Orbital Module, remain in orbit. Here are their latest elsets... Shenzhou CZ-2F r 303 x 192 km 1 25957U 99061B 99326.53391552 .01544555 84323-5 89867-3 0 171 2 25957 42.5972 10.7521 0084420 146.5954 214.0288 16.09770703 394 Shenzhou Orbital Module ? 315 x 201 km 1 25960U 99061E 99326.78766483 .00998111 83803-5 78315-3 0 78 2 25960 42.6028 9.1935 0085338 149.9488 210.6322 16.05939401 276 Alan -- Alan Pickup | COSPAR 2707: 55d53m48.7s N 3d11m51.2s W 156m asl Edinburgh | Tel: +44 (0)131 477 9144 Fax: +44 (0)870 0520750 Scotland | SatEvo page: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html