Further to my earlier message, I have now produced search elements for each of the 11 possible manoeuvre times during the interval after USA 129 was last seen and first reported missing. The object's last known orbit was: USA 129 15.0 3.0 0.0 5.1 v 1 24680U 96072A 00334.84947917 .00053030 00000-0 76638-3 0 00 2 24680 97.8152 35.0609 0465688 158.9846 203.1304 14.84495183 05 I recommend first looking for the object in this orbit, in case it has not manoeuvred. It may well be that the object was not seen because it was fainter than usual. If it does not appear at the predicted time, then it may be found in one of the attached 11 post-manoeuvre orbits. Plotting all 11 orbits probably is not necessary. I suggest initially plotting elset # 70010 and 70000 to bracket the earliest and latest arrival times and paths. If the angular distance between those paths is much wider than your optics' field of view, then I recommend plotting a few of the intermediate orbits. These orbits should be reasonably predictive, since they are based on the object's historical behaviour. They are based on raising the apogee at the time of perigee passage. There were 11 perigee passages during the interval when the object went missing. The epoch time and mean anomaly correspond to the moment of perigee passage. The effects of the manoeuvre have been treated as an instantaneous single impulse. Prediction accuracy of the individual orbits should be accurate to within a few minutes of time for a few days. Happy hunting! Ted Molczan 1 70000U 00334.87885417 .00040000 00000-0 60988-3 0 06 2 70000 97.8152 35.0898 0513000 158.8882 0.0000 14.73500000 03 1 70001U 00334.94622685 .00040000 00000-0 60988-3 0 01 2 70001 97.8152 35.1561 0513000 158.6667 0.0000 14.73500000 01 1 70002U 00335.01357639 .00040000 00000-0 60988-3 0 05 2 70002 97.8152 35.2224 0513000 158.4454 0.0000 14.73500000 01 1 70003U 00335.08094329 .00040000 00000-0 60988-3 0 07 2 70003 97.8152 35.2887 0513000 158.2240 0.0000 14.73500000 08 1 70004U 00335.14829861 .00040000 00000-0 60988-3 0 02 2 70004 97.8152 35.3550 0513000 158.0026 0.0000 14.73500000 07 1 70005U 00335.21566667 .00040000 00000-0 60988-3 0 03 2 70005 97.8152 35.4213 0513000 157.7812 0.0000 14.73500000 04 1 70006U 00335.28302546 .00040000 00000-0 60988-3 0 05 2 70006 97.8152 35.4877 0513000 157.5598 0.0000 14.73500000 00 1 70007U 00335.35039352 .00040000 00000-0 60988-3 0 06 2 70007 97.8152 35.5540 0513000 157.3383 0.0000 14.73500000 09 1 70008U 00335.41775000 .00040000 00000-0 60988-3 0 01 2 70008 97.8152 35.6203 0513000 157.1169 0.0000 14.73500000 07 1 70009U 00335.48510764 .00040000 00000-0 60988-3 0 03 2 70009 97.8152 35.6866 0513000 156.8955 0.0000 14.73500000 02 1 70010U 00335.55246528 .00040000 00000-0 60988-3 0 07 2 70010 97.8152 35.7529 0513000 156.6741 0.0000 14.73500000 02 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Nov 30 2000 - 16:33:55 PST