Peter Wakelin has reported our first visual observations of USA 227, the payload of the recent NROL-27 launch: http://satobs.org/seesat/Apr-2011/0065.html http://satobs.org/seesat/Apr-2011/0087.html His observations yield the following orbit, which was inclined 4.9 deg and synchronous, located at 30.4 W. USA 227 35783 X 35792 km 1 37377U 11011A 11098.49400289 .00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 09 2 37377 4.9282 343.9854 0001062 16.7568 343.0870 1.00272116 07 Arc 20110406.83-0409.06 WRMS resid 0.004 totl 0.003 xtrk One of our radio colleagues has reported VHF signals, which appeared to have been emitted by this object, and are consistent with an SDS (Satellite Data System) satellite. Its location is 20 deg west of one of the two the long-established SDS GEO slots, 10 W, currently occupied by SDS 3-1: SDS 3-1 35743 X 35834 km 1 26635U 00080A 11095.62684684 .00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 03 2 26635 4.3564 49.0487 0010782 46.0689 314.0432 1.00270000 06 Whether US 227 is an SDS 3, or the first of a 4th generation has yet to be determined. Ted Molczan _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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