-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Peter Wakelin wrote: > I'll have another go soon when the southbound leg emerges from shadow > and will scan the entire orbit if needed. I'm using elsets from McCants' classfd.dat. I assume you're tracking 23937 (TiPS) and not 23936 (NOSS 2-3). I notice that they're much different in their elements and how SatTrack shows their orbits. This evening we'll have decent weather, but of course there won't be any visible passes. :< The first opportunity here starts on 9 October, with the best practical ones starting 13 October for my location. 26 October should have a set of very visible passes here in Texas. This is a long way out. I'm not sure how much drag will change the orbit, but I would suspect that it isn't by much. The elements I'm using are already 75 days old. :< Your citation of the recoil from the cable snapping (if that's what happened) made me think. Since the cable is nonlinear, the departure velocity will really depend on how tight the cable was when/if the cable were broken. It shouldn't ever go to zero tension though, based on how the experiment is supposed to work. One description says it's supposed to librate (pendulum motion), causing the tension to vary cyclically. http://projects.nrl.navy.mil/tips/techspecs.html http://projects.nrl.navy.mil/tips/stiffness.html Come the 13th, I'll probably be looking for this vehicle. John -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFFGWIdEd1YUJfL25YRAjxFAKDKdhY80vJKCJAZ9ExoGGNbQPJzEgCeIjTt /PqdATFWJLBlPVRzR/22LLs= =sHp+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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