After almost exactly 40 years in orbit, the 4th stage that orbited with Secor 5 way back on August 10, 1965 seems to have shed a bunch of debris, perhaps because of an on-orbit breakup. I note catalogue numbers #28793-28803 assigned to 1965-063C-N and listed as Scout B debris, respectively, sometime in mid-August of this year. The radar cross-sections of the fragments are all quite a bit smaller than the 4th stage itself, which likely indicates the rocket didn't disintegrate, just shed some bits. This stuff may, of course, have been in orbit and tracked for a long time before being catalogue. This little bulletin is courtesy of the Space-Track website, which I discovered while rummaging around for satellite info on the Internet. Great website--reminds me of the days in the mid-1960s--just about when that very Secor 5 originally went up--when I lived in Cambridge, Mass. and used to call up the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for the latest catalogue numbers. I'm now a registered user (like almost everyone else on this list, I would imagine). Makes me think what a wackier world this would be if the morning headlines weren't "Paris Hilton crashes car" but were "Scout B debris found in orbit 40 years after launch." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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