Leo Barhorst posted: >Telstar 402 never got a Noradnumber or Cospar ID. It disintegrated in According to Jonathan McDowell's Space Report, the explosion occurred several minutes after the payload separated from the third stage. On several occasions, we saw very bright flashes from this object. My opinion is that there was time for the solar panels to deploy after spacecraft separation and that the bright flashes were from the solar panels and thus that this really was the Telstar 402 payload. The optical characteristics of this object did not at all match the characteristics of an Ariane rocket. We observed it flashing to magnitude 4.5 at a range of 20000 Km: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/May-2000/0293.html Similar obs by Ed at 17000 Km: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Jan-2004/0157.html Similar obs indicating there was a 3 second period from 1999 to 2004: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Nov-1999/0259.html Mike McCants ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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