Tom Wagner wrote: > Can someone give me an estimated magnitude of Soyuz TMA-4? I > tried to see it pass by at 57 degrees altitude tonight, only > about 1 degree from the ISS but could not see it. To the best of my knowledge, the Soyuz has remained docked to ISS. The latest USSTRATCOM elsets (via NASA/OIG) are only about one day apart in epoch, but falsely predict ISS trailing the Souyuz by roughly 1 s tonight: ISS (ZARYA) 1 25544U 98067A 04147.44363426 .00012180 00000-0 11075-3 0 8604 2 25544 51.6333 76.5447 0006002 154.1128 9.0247 15.68410635314904 SOYUZ-TMA 4 1 28228U 04013A 04146.48582176 +.00013884 +00000-0 +12558-3 0 00412 2 28228 051.6332 081.4227 0006298 151.5328 359.9601 15.68393032005680 Unfortunately, ISS manoeuvred to slightly raise its orbit near the epoch of the above Soyuz elset, as evidenced by these predicted elsets issued by NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/orbi t/ISS/SVPOST.html 1 25544U 98067A 04145.50327429 .00020000 00000-0 20000-3 0 9005 2 25544 51.6317 86.4364 0006012 148.3779 211.7743 15.68382589 34607 1 25544U 98067A 04146.45904192 .00020000 00000-0 20000-3 0 9019 2 25544 51.6318 81.5676 0005858 151.0671 209.0815 15.68368044 34755 Note the decrease in mean motion from 15.68382589 rev/d to 15.68368044 rev/d. Had the Soyuz elset been updated in the past 24 h, the effect of the manoeuvre would have been reflected in the elements. For real excitement, I wish I had known that a few days earlier the Soyuz temporarily manoeuvred to an 82.6 deg, 930 km orbit: SOYUZ-TMA 4 1 28228U 04013A 04143.17555430 +.00000193 +00000-0 +14475-3 0 00394 2 28228 082.5635 203.6829 0017007 333.0731 026.9558 13.89961606005186 Or perhaps USSTRATCOM temporarily gave the wrong ID to this piece of debris: SL-14 DEB 1 25444U 87068BX 04144.61524716 .00000373 00000-0 29083-3 0 8899 2 25444 82.5619 202.5313 0016317 324.2003 35.8066 13.89964370304500 Of course, we should not poke fun until we routinely track 10,000+ objects. Ted Molczan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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