Decaying rocket (and fragments)

Bjoern Gimle (bjorn@tt-tech.se)
Mon, 04 Aug 1997 12:24:38 +0200

A Pegasus fragment decaying tonight, two early Thursday (?) and
the SL-6 rocket #24801 have good visibilities.
The fragments are all listed as having RCS values of 0.032-0.039
sq.m. in June SSR, so except for flashes they may be around +10
at 1000 km.

24366 94029PT  Pegasus deb PT should be passing in sunlight tonight
at 21:41 UT over the British Isles (look up, Russell!) on its last
orbit ?

Aug.04.88 Pegasus deb PT SatEvo                  208 x 199 km
1 24366U 94029PT  97216.88219035  .91773195  46389+1  29901-1 0 94141
2 24366  81.7871 109.3241 0006829 256.3377 103.5862 16.26048685172622

Around 00 UT Thursday morning, 24202 94029KD and 24395 94029QY will
exit shadow at its southern apex (-81) and enter shadow southbound
at around 50N at 22:15 LST (local standard time, #24202) and 55N at
23:05 LST (#24395) 

#24801 appears to be sunlit for the entire orbit!
NB 26N 18:42 LST 
   39N 19:28 LST sunset ?
   52N 20:31 LST
   60N 22:10 LST
SB 60N 01:35 LST
   50N 03:16 LST
   35N 04:22 LST sunrise?
   28N 05:00 LST perigee
(Daytime on more southern latitudes)

SatEvo for tonight:
C 2342 SL-6 r1   5.0  0.0  0.0  5.5 d            232 x 187 km
1 24801U 97022B   97216.87943651  .02002302  19883-2  65159-3 0 91678
2 24801  62.7626 230.7416 0034178 118.5256 241.8189 16.23861950 13154
Pegasus deb QY                                   412 x 371 km
1 24395U 94029QY  97216.98415366  .03695056  53959-2  47116-1 0 93736
2 24395  81.9567 136.2569 0030298  28.8967 331.2705 15.58707577 61252
Pegasus deb KD                                   413 x 371 km
1 24202U 94029KD  97216.99236739  .02971529  34716-2  37889-1 0 94423
2 24202  81.7949 120.4841 0030945   3.4636 356.5568 15.58682208 86819

The Pegasus fragment elset bases for these were from 97214, so the
uncertainty can be expected to be +/- 3 min for these two, +/- 10 min
for #24366? Look for newer elsets on SeeSat-L or 
 http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/tle



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