I was hoping that USA 186's Titan 2nd stage would be spotted, and Greg Roberts seems to have tracked it during a planar search for USA 129, which is in nearly the same plane. The main uncertainty in my search elements is in the mean motion: USA 186 r 9.8 3.0 0.0 3.0 v 162 X 899 km 1 72002U 05303.88490183 .01176087 00000-0 83506-3 0 01 2 72002 97.8659 6.1332 0532929 146.2634 217.3750 15.10892763 05 I expect the prediction time uncertainty to be 5 to 10 min, 24 h after the epoch. It is interesting to note that USA 129's 2nd stage rocket had a similar mean motion at about the same time after its launch as USA 186's: 1 24681U 96072B 96366.58430690 .01220474 00000-0 21871-3 0 38 2 24681 97.8776 66.9102 0542171 130.8391 233.9879 15.15596164 00 New observations of USA 186 by Tony Beresford and Greg Roberts confirm its 262 km perigee, and enable inclusion of all elements in the orbital analysis: USA 186 15.0 3.0 0.0 5.3 v 262 X 1046 km 1 28888U 05042A 05304.47411674 .00011481 00000-0 11949-3 0 06 2 28888 97.8725 6.2351 0556882 145.9579 217.8706 14.71299916 05 Arc 2005 Oct 25.82 - 31.53, WRMS residuals = 0.012 deg Russell's latest observations of 05011B cause the negative decay terms to disappear: XSS-11 r 1.3 1.1 0.0 7.6 v 1 28637U 05011B 05304.20013760 .00000038 00000-0 21080-4 0 03 2 28637 98.8493 294.9442 0012099 342.4920 17.5832 14.11042931 00 Arc 2005 Aug 29.72 - Oct 31.23, WRMS residuals = 0.035 deg Ted Molczan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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