Re: FW: Forced reentry of Cosmos 2495

From: Marco Langbroek via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>
Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 16:41:44 +0200
Björn Gimle via Seesat-l schreef op 8-9-2014 22:54:
> Rob Matson sent me the following info, of which I was not aware otherwise:
 >
>  A little surprising to me that the Russians would
> command destructive reentry to occur over land rather than ocean –
> especially over CONUS – when some pieces of the 6.7-ton satellite will
> likely survive to the ground.


On the last available pre-reentry orbit it would become visible over the US at 
about 4:32 UT (Sep 3 UT), at 235 km altitude.

Thomas photographed it, obviously much lower in altitude, between 4:31 and 4:33 
UT, so only a small time discrepancy of a few minutes max.

The relatively minor discrepancy between observed pass time during reentry and 
predicted pass time based on pre- re-entry elements, suggest that the satellite 
orbit was lowered rather suddenly and drastically very shortly before the pass 
over the US started.

Going from Thomas' observation times when it passed over New Mexico, this 
reentry happened some 5 minutes after the satellite passed its descending node 
at 4:27 UT. So I wonder whether for example an intended orbital plane change 
(which you normally do by firing a booster in one of the nodes) went wrong and 
it was sent plummeting down instead. I hardly can't believe the
Russians wanted this one to come down over the USA.

- Marco

-----
Dr Marco Langbroek  -  SatTrackCam Leiden, the Netherlands.
e-mail: sattrackcam_at_langbroek.org

Cospar 4353 (Leiden):   52.15412 N, 4.49081 E (WGS84), +0 m ASL
Cospar 4354 (De Wilck): 52.11685 N, 4.56016 E (WGS84), -2 m ASL
Cospar 4355 (Cronesteyn): 52.13878 N, 4.49937 E (WGS84), -2 m ASL
Station (b)log: http://sattrackcam.blogspot.com
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-----
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Received on Tue Sep 09 2014 - 09:46:20 UTC

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