> (Question to analysts :) Could this be the place where the breakup occured ? > > See the plot as viewed normal to the orbital plane : > http://www.obsat.com/images/debplotA.gif > Yes, except that the orbits have precessed to a varying degree in their (also precessed) orbital planes since the explosion. Using Rob Matson's ALLCOLA and Ted Molczan's info that the explosion took place on Mar.10, and the first fragment elsets + 99057D day 85 and 99057C day 87, I computed all close encounters within 77 km on Mar.09-14. When one piece had multiple encounters with the same piece, I removed those exceeding 20 km, if there were some below 10 km, and those with a large orbit (vertical) separation. The number of remaining encounter pairs were: 0309 29 0310 24 0311 153 12:54-13:23 50, 13:02-13:14 40 0312 34 0313 21 0314 27 Most notable output lines are: Date UTC Time Norad Name Range/OrbSep NdAng EphAge 3/11/2000 13:03:31.71 25942 CBERS-1 Rk 6.7/ 2.3 78.8 -16.21 26123 3/11/2000 13:03:56.25 26124 CBERS LM4 deb L 3.5/ 1.0 89.7 -32.74 26145 3/11/2000 13:04:41.02 26125 CBERS LM4 deb M 4.7/ 0.0 60.7 -33.35 26143 3/11/2000 13:05:31.69 26122 CBERS LM4 deb J 9.1/ 0.2 131.6 -32.67 26125 3/11/2000 13:05:48.00 26143 CBERS LM4 deb AF 7.4/ 0.6 123.5 -33.62 26122 This puts the explosion time as 00071.545. The objects involved above (C,J,K,L,M,AF and AH) have low drag (except AH), different perigee heights and even more differing apogees. L has is its perigee in the opposite direction from the others. Positions are 047 to 051 W, 47 to 56 S, height 753 +-5 km, southbound, sunlit. -- 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://www2.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 : Mon Apr 17 2000 - 01:25:38 PDT