RE: I don't think the mast tether has been deployed

From: Ted Molczan (molczanssl@rogers.com)
Date: Wed Apr 25 2007 - 19:38:59 EDT

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    Kevin Fetter wrote:
    
    > They say on the Mast webv blog, that they haven't made 
    > contact with Ted, the picosat used to deploy the tether.
    > 
    > So I don't think the tether has been deployed, as Ted isn't 
    > responding for some reason:(
    
    New Scientist's Kelly Young has article updating the situation:
    
    http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn11716-no-signal-yet-heard-from-tetherdep
    loying-satellite.html
    
    Also, according to the blog, after the tether's deployment, the rate of decay is
    expected to increase by a factor of 51. As of the epoch 07115.7959 TLE, the rate
    of decay remains unchanged, and there is little difference in predicted time of
    passes among the elsets issued over the past week. However, it should be pointed
    out that to-date, all 31126 / 07012K elsets contain a fixed B* decay term, so
    the actual rate of decay has not been determined. So, it may be too soon to draw
    any conclusions from the elements.
    
    I believe that there is value in continuing to observe MAST for signs of tether
    deployment.
    
    Ted Molczan
    
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