Fw: Break-up of Telkom 3 Breeze-M R/B (#38746)

From: Greg Roberts (grr@telkomsa.net)
Date: Sun Oct 21 2012 - 14:11:48 UTC

  • Next message: Brad Young: "BY C 102112"

    I havent seen this on SeeSat ( maybe I missed it? ) but Im sure of interest if not seen earlier.
    
    Cheers
    greg
    
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Pierre NEIRINCK 
    To: undisclosed-recipients: 
    Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2012 1:23 PM
    Subject: Break-up of Telkom 3 Breeze-M R/B (#38746)
    
    
    
    
      .> Message du 20/10/12 04:05
      > De : "Matson, Robert D." 
    
      .Hi Pierre,
    
    
    
      You might let people know who are interested in such things that for the
    
      last 3 days I’ve been investigating a major satellite break-up with well-known
    
      astronomer Rob McNaught. The event occurred on 16 October when Rob,
    
      as part of his regular near-earth asteroid survey work, serendipitously
    
      observed dozens of fragments passing through his very narrow field of
    
      view telescope (Siding Spring Observatory, New South Wales, Australia).
    
      Based on his astrometry, I positively identified the culprit as the
    
      Breeze-M R/B upper stage that was supposed to launch Telkom 3 and
    
      Express MD2 into GEO back in August (USSPACECOM #38746). Rob
    
      observed over 70 individual fragments moving in mostly parallel
    
      orbits that matched the location (to within 0.5 degrees cross-track),
    
      direction and velocity that #38746 ~should~ have had, except that most
    
      of the fragments showed up about 5 minutes early. A subsequent
    
      targeted search for #38746 one day later by Rob (cued by me) turned
    
      up nothing, adding confidence to the identification.
    
    
    
      Given that this Breeze-M rocket body was nearly full of fuel (it shut down
    
      after only a 7-second burn, stranding the two satellites in useless orbits),
    
      it is not that surprising that it would eventually explode. I’m still calculating
    
      when the break-up had to have occurred, but my suspicion is that Rob
    
      McNaught imaged the aftermath only a few hours after explosion. My
    
      guess is that it broke up near perigee due to the elevated aerodynamic
    
      stresses at that point in the orbit. Perigee occurs on a descending node
    
      in the northern hemisphere around 30 degrees latitude. Rob’s observation
    
      was close to 180 degrees away in mean anomaly (i.e. close to apogee on
    
      the ascending node).
    
    
    
      Surprisingly, USSPACECOM has not reported this breakup, nor has it
    
      cataloged any new fragments as a result of the breakup. Certainly
    
      McNaught has excellent data from which he and I will be able to
    
      construct dozens of TLEs for the brighter fragments, many of which
    
      are flashing at very high rates.
    
    
    
      Will let you know if there are any new developments.
    
    
    
      Have a good weekend!  --Rob
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