Derek Breit, Russell Eberst, Alberto Rango, Greg Roberts, Brad Young, and I, contributed observations used to determine one or more of the following element sets. Russell has discovered the rocket body of Helios 2B. He reported it as an UNID on Aug 22 UTC, and noted its proximity to the plane of that launch. I estimated orbits based on the payload and the rocket, and Russell found it last night, 6.5 min late, and 2 deg off track, relative the rocket elements. My analysis confirmed our hunch that this is the same UNID Russell observed on April 07 UTC, which I erroneously identified at the time as the payload. Below are all four of Russell's observations, with their correct IDs, in my archival format: 0907302 2420 20100407 033112.76 091057+433324 6.0 6.0 0 S 0907302 2420 20100407 033127.82 093515+402755 6.0 6.0 0 S 0907302 2420 20100822 030152.10 211010+302836 3.5 3.5 0 S 0907302 2420 20100825 010253.41 041659+162552 6.3 6.3 0 S Helios 2B r 614 X 671 km 1 36125U 09073B 10237.02021578 .00000102 00000-0 15000-4 0 00 2 36125 98.0401 175.1666 0040933 2.2543 357.8842 14.74859328 06 Arc 20100407.15-0825.04 WRMS resid 0.060 totl 0.012 xtrk This orbit propagates to within a fraction of a degree of the plane of the orbit at launch. Near-term predictions should be accurate to within about 10 s, per day since epoch. In my recent analyses of OTV-1, I have noted a tendency toward a negative decay term of small size. Initially, I was reluctant to accept that, due to the short observational arc, so I forced a zero decay term; however, the mean motion of successive daily solutions has been decreasing very gradually, which is consistent with a negative decay term. At nearly 6 days, the arc is now sufficient to accept a negative decay term: OTV-1 433 X 444 km 1 36514U 10015A 10237.39211858 -.00002473 00000-0 -53835-4 0 05 2 36514 39.9868 312.8221 0007860 17.7658 342.3423 15.43342168 06 Arc 20100819.75-0825.41 WRMS resid 0.049 totl 0.011 xtrk Ted Molczan _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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