Decay update: October 10

Alan Pickup (alan@wingar.demon.co.uk)
Thu, 9 Oct 1997 22:35:07 +0100 

I've had to devote myself to other things for a couple of days, but with
a number of interesting decays just occurred or imminent, I thought an
update was in order.

The latest and probably final OIG elset for the Molniya platform, 97- 54
C, is:
Molniya platform                                 172 x 136 km
1 24962U 97054C   97282.30622927  .16685493  86987-5  30615-3 0   665
2 24962  62.7999 219.8670 0027913 122.0721 238.3718 16.44481555  2318
My SatEvo evolution suggests decay may have been a little more than one
rev later at about October 9.39 (~09:20 UTC).

The bright object we have been calling the Long March rocket has
probably decayed in the past few hours, at about October 10.81. This is
the latest (but perhaps not the final elset) from OIG:
Long March 2 r                                   249 x 145 km
1 24930U 97048F   97282.56283595  .07306663 -10601-5  44658-3 0  1051
2 24930  86.3403 106.2447 0078804  17.6560 342.7303 16.28395050  5972

Other decays to come in the next few days are:

Lewis's rocket, LMLV-1 = 97- 44 B, at about October 13.6. The latest
elset:
LMLV-1                                           227 x 217 km
1 24910U 97044B   97282.61954014  .01428514  25106-5  81073-3 0  1121
2 24910  97.5452 182.5243 0006916 126.3156 233.9348 16.19118259  7564

The rocket which launched Molniya 1-90, about October 14.7:
Molniya-M r                                      293 x 192 km
1 24961U 97054B   97282.45034835  .01274591  82860-5  73857-3 0   517
2 24961  62.7913 219.5150 0075959 137.3418 223.3590 16.11703951  2333

The Delta 2 rocket responsible for Iridiums 22...26, about October 15:
Iridm Delta r    5.9  2.4  0.0  5.6 d            327 x 187 km
1 24908U 97043F   97282.53882334  .01386243 -13036-5  85909-3 0  1307
2 24908  82.6179 348.7866 0105671 164.5848 195.8899 16.06344806  7808

The following very low perigee object may decay about October 19.
SL-12 r (aux motor)                              3393 x 108 km
1 21863U 92005H   97282.42765322  .09644688  84848-5  47722-3 0  2412
2 21863  64.2135 355.7573 2020826 204.1423 145.0391 11.84667141 92401


Elsets for these objects, updated at three-hour intervals when my Telnet
connection to OIG allows, are available in my select.tle and dklist.tle
files via the WWW page below. I am now also updating an iridiums.tle
file with current elsets for all the Iridium objects.

Alan
-- 
 Alan Pickup | COSPAR site 2707:   55d53m48.7s N   3d11m51.2s W    156m asl
 Edinburgh   | Home:      alan@wingar.demon.co.uk       +44 (0)131 477 9144
 Scotland    | SatEvo satellite page: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/