The re-entry of the SESat Proton rocket (#26244 = 00- 19 B) on Wednesday (Apr 19) was observed from India. Some 24 hours ago, Tony Beresford forwarded to me a report that had been posted to the ASTRO mailing list by Vivek Soley in Indore, India. This said... > The local newspapers have reported a bright meteor like object passing > over the sky at about 16:55 hrs UTC. This tailed object like a comet was > followed by hundreds of other small comets. It was seen by several > people in cities bout 200 kms from my city, Indore. The science centre > said that unlike other shooting star events which last for a few > seconds, this lasted for about two minutes. There are no reports of any > hit on the surface. > > I will bring you further details as soon as I get them. Mean time any > guess? I replied to say that this was very likely the re-entry of the Proton and, Following further correspondence, it is clear that the time and motion of the "comets" is in excellent agreement with the rocket's track, assuming that it had survived a little beyond the decay points estimated my myself and SpaceCom. In my Decay Watch analysis I had placed the decay at 16:38 UTC "to the S of port Elizabeth, South Africa, on a track that would carry it over Madagascar and onwards to central India (Nagpur) at 16:57 UTC". My estimated time uncertainty was 30 minutes and my predicted elset for the final orbit had been: SESat Proton r 130 x 126 km 1 26244U 00019B 00110.64125050 .43968281 17345+1 24776-3 0 90195 2 26244 51.6375 162.4513 0003528 272.6502 87.3094 16.54400612 292 SpaceCom's decay estimate was a little better, placing the decay at 16:46 UTC (+-37 min) just as it reached Madagascar and that bit closer to India. Alan -- Alan Pickup | COSPAR 2707: 55d53m48.7s N 3d11m51.2s W 156m asl Edinburgh | Tel: +44 (0)131 477 9144 Fax: +44 (0)870 0520750 Scotland | SatEvo page: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Fri Apr 21 2000 - 00:52:22 PDT