> 98-51D and 98-66C would decay naturally in July this year - just 3 months away. > 97-82D and 97-51D look likely to decay in the last quarter of this year. > This is providing Motorola (Iridium) don't power them to decay, where possible. > I don't see why they should, since the Atmosphere is doing the job for them. > How could they, since they are tumbling? OTOH, this seems to explain how they could bring most down in a controlled way with the available fuel: Lower the orbit, let the satellite tumble and the atmosphere do its work for a year, then regain control and give them the final kick. The decay rate surprised me. -- bjorn.gimle@tietotech.se (office) -- -- b_gimle@algonet.se (home) http://www.algonet.se/~b_gimle -- -- COSPAR 5919, MALMA, 59.2615 N, 18.6206 E, 33 m -- -- COSPAR 5918, HAMMARBY, 59.2985 N, 18.1045 E, 44 m -- -- SeeSat-L / Visual Satellite Observer Home Page found at -- -- http://www.satellite.eu.org/satintro.html -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Apr 13 2000 - 09:08:39 PDT