Predicted reentry of 95 54B tonight
Mike McCants (mike@comshare.com)
Fri, 13 Oct 1995 09:37:22 -0500
Patrick Schmeer sent me the following elements obtained from OIG:
1 23681U 95054B 95285.04478436 .01452974 12148-4 28725-3 0 55
2 23681 51.6431 273.7142 0002812 297.9316 62.1438 16.30797515 62
1 23681U 9554B 95285.41227447 .01953190 00000-0 33121-3 0 96
2 23681 51.6441 271.6610 0003691 286.5897 073.5418 16.32297792000129
He suspects this is the LUCH-1 rocket.
The drag term is small enough to lead me to believe that this is
a large booster rocket.
I predict the following elements for Oct 14:
1 23681U 9554B 95287.06045400 .08580000 00000-0 33121-3 0 00
2 23681 051.6441 262.4200 0002000 293.4560 066.5920 16.44311500 00
[The checksum on this elset is not valid.]
I predict that this object will reenter some time between Oct 14 at
0 hours UT and Oct 14 at 12 hours UT. This object will be making passes
over Europe at appoximately Oct. 13 at 18:24, 19:55, 21:26, 22:56, and
Oct. 14 at 0:27. These passes are all inside the Earth's shadow of course,
but if the object is reentering, it should be spectacular.
Perhaps the passes for the US are more favorable.
The predicted times for New Jersey are Oct 14 at 0:14 and 6:20 UT.
But there are passes before and after those times (by about 88 minutes)
that are favorable for sites that are at least 100 miles away from
Jay Respler. Since the height of this rocket when it is reentering
will be only 50 to 70 miles, its visible ground track will be only
300 to 400 miles in width.
Note: there is not much uncertainty in the time of passage predicted
by the above elset. If the rocket is seen, it will be within 2 or 3
minutes of the predicted time of passage. (However, if it hits your
house, it will be about 5 minutes later than the prediction. :-)
But the actual reentry will be many miles lower than the predicted
height of 100 miles. So if the pass is predicted to be at 45 degrees
and it is actually reentering, it will probably be seen at 30 degrees.
I may be able to obtain new elements from OIG and generate a revised
prediction about 6PM CDT this evening.
Mike McCants
mike@comshare.com