96- 17 B = 23828 96-04-26 WV S +6 96-04-27 TC S or lp, mag +5.5 96-05-05 LB S, mag 5 96-05-08 LB 50 dtm, mag 6->7 96-05-12 JEV 100 ??P>100?, mag+6->i 96-05-15 KJ 16.0 first sa, later FF 96-05-15 TC 14.4 sa, mag +4.5
96- 17 B = 23828 = fourth stage IRS P3 :
Between its orbital insertion and the beginning of May, the semi- major axis remained nearly constant at 7202.62 km. Since May 2, the semi-major axis started to decrease suddenly:
96 May 2 : 7202.62 km 96 May 6 : 7202.57 96 May 7 : 7202.52 96 May 8 : 7202.46 96 May 9 : 7202.41 96 May 10: 7202.38
Because the observations around May 10 didn't show a nice flasher, I thought that it was not accelerating. But on May 15, Tristan and I were able to observe it again. At the beginning it was slowly varying with a small amplitude but later on the flashes became more distinct. Here are our observations in PPAS-format:
96- 17 B 96-05-15 21:51 KJ 191.9 1.0 12 16.0 first sa, later FF 96- 17 B 96-05-15 21:52 TC 115.3 0.5 8 14.4 sa, mag +4.5
My timings were: 15.9(1); 32.8(2); 49.6(3); 64.5(4); 81.9(5); 97.8(6); 114.7(7); 128.8(8); 147(9); 160(10); 169.6(11); 179.7(12).
According to my timings Tristan may have missed one flash and his period has to be 115.3 / 7 = 16.5 seconds.
It seems that it can take some time after the Jump in Mean Motion (May 4 +-2) for the acceleration to become visible. This is an ideal opportunity to observe how long the acceleration will continue.