Mike McCants (mmccants@jump.net) wrote: > Iridium 5 is now in an orbit that seems to be for a "spare". I think that this is technically the "engineering orbit". > The current spare to replace it would be Iridium 51. The only spare in the same orbital plane, indeed, but suspected of being "less than perfect". The latest elsets from OIG for Iridium 5 and Iridium 51: IRIDIUM 5 1 24795U 97020D 01226.50230066 -.00000134 +00000-0 -45834-4 0 06836 2 24795 086.4489 216.3794 0004874 080.7818 279.3935 14.43143194224005 IRIDIUM 51 1 25262U 98018A 01227.47301976 .00000113 00000-0 27806-4 0 5282 2 25262 86.4497 215.9758 0004651 84.4184 275.7545 14.43145208178529 represent *identical* orbits, so I suspect that the same object is being reported under both identities! Maybe Iridium 5 has been lowered; maybe Iridium 51 has been raised; maybe one tracking station saw the changeover but another didn't! Anyway, one of the two objects seems to be "lost", at least for the moment. On past experience, it may take a few days for the OIG elsets to sort themselves out. In the meantime, perhaps we should be looking for Iridium 51 in the operational slot vacated by Iridium 5! -- Rod Sladen, Beeston, Nottinghamshire, UK 52.9230N, 1.2190W ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Aug 16 2001 - 15:27:01 PDT