Re-entry of OSCAR-13

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OSCAR-13 (AO-13 / 30695 / 88051B) is an amateur radio (ham)
satellite.  It's in an extremely eccentric, near Molynia orbit.  Its
high apogees give excellent communication between distant points on
the earth.  They also make the satellite's orbit susceptible to the
perturbing influence of the sun and moon.  OSCAR-13's apogees are
being raised by these influences - and it's perigees are decreasing.

Sometime this summer, OSCAR-13 will start to dip into the earth's
atmosphere at perigee and that will be the beginning of the end.  It
should re-enter sometime in December 1996.

James Miller, G3RUH, is the ground controller for this satellite.
He's placed some interesting text files at AMSAT's FTP site,
FTP.AMSAT.ORG.  Look for:

ftp.amsat.org/amsat/articles/g3ruh/A114.ZIP 
   A text article on AO-13's coming re-entry.

ftp.amsat.org/amsat/satinfo/ao13/DECAYKEP.ZIP
   200 sets of 2-line elements that represent AO-13's orbit at 50 orbit 
   intervals until October 1966 and then every orbit until re-entry. 

James says it will re-enter at night, so perhaps somebody will get to
see the fireball.

Dave, N9LTD

P.S.  Apparently, if this had been forseen, a very small change in
the timing of the kick motor could have prevented it. :-(

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