New Iridium obs / Assorted items

Craig Cholar (3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL)
Tue, 23 Dec 97 06:36:59 PST

The string of new Iridiums continues to slowly pull apart, except
for the last two, 25107 and 25108.  For some reason, they continue to
be extremely close to each other.  During a pass at 12:48 12/23 UT
(04:48 local) they were separated by only .75 deg.  This worked out
to about 3 seconds.  The others ranged from 12 to 15 seconds apart from
each other.

A few odds and ends:

 In an earlier post, I mentioned I didn't see the recent Progress vehicle
 Monday night.  No wonder.  It had already docked with Mir.  I also
 mentioned I was looking for it in the Northwest, but that was a typo.  I
 meant Northeast.

 Iridium 24 (24905, 97-43C) flared to about -4 at a distance of 2112km,
 at 13:03:46 12/23 UT, instead of the predicted -1.  The elevation was
 13 degrees.  Iridflar 1.4 flare angle was .51, Skysat .42.

 James Oberg posted an interesting article to the Friends and Partners
 In Space mailing list about the wayward Inspector satellite.  To read it
 go to the archives page at:
   http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/dconst/FPSpace/date.html#742
 His article should show up in the archives soon, near the top of the
 list with a subject of:   Mir/Inspector Relative motion
 For more info about FPSACE, including how to join the e-mail list:
   http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/~jgreen/fpsorg/fpsorg.html

 Florida Today Space Online has a press release on the upcoming Orbcomm
 Pegasus launch:  http://www.flatoday.com/space/today/122397c.htm
 For those with dishes, it mentions how to pick up the satellite TV feed.

 Another nice website with space related news is:
   http://www.spacer.com/
 While it isn't kept as up-to-the-minute as Florida Today, it has
 pretty good information about the Japanese space program,
 including short articles about the problems with ETS-7 at:
   http://www.spacer.com/spacenet/text/ets7-h.html
   http://www.spacer.com/spacenet/text/ets7-e.html

 Craig Cholar    3432P@VM1.CC.NPS.NAVY.MIL
 Marina, California
 36 41 10.3N,  121 48 17.9W    (36.6862, -121.8050)      UTC -8