The satellite Probe-1 or Tan Ce 1 or TC-1 (or if you accept the Canadian report Explorer 1!) was launched at 3:06 a.m. on 29 December (presumably Chinese time.) Google email alerts are of assistance once again and came up with the following: http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-12/30/content_294385.htm and http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/12/29/satellite031229 (Tan Ce 1 could be confusing in view of the existence of 4952 1971-011-A Tansei 1.) It appears that the sooner we have a catalogue number for this object the better! The China Daily article quotes "an elliptical orbit ranging from 555 kilometres and 78,051 kilometres from the Earth." It is one of a series of two known as "Double Star," the second of which is due for launch in June and will be in a polar orbit. Robert Holdsworth Wainuiomata New Zealand 41.2610°S, 174.9470°E ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Dec 30 2003 - 04:04:08 EST