On 08/12/2018 09.45, tme_at_asteroidinitiatives.com [mpml] wrote: > On their Weibo account, China Aerospace Science and Technology > Corporation (CASC) confirmed that #ChangE4 has successfully separated > from the upper stage and is now in lunar injection orbit, with perigee > at 200 km and apogee at ~420,000 km. > https://www.weibo.com/5386897742/H6cRnxOac?from=page_1006065386897742_profile&wvr=6&mod=weibotime > … > > https://twitter.com/Yeqzids/status/1071244045614075904 And also stated that it'll enter orbit around the moon at 15:00 UTC on December 11. That really constrains the possible orbit, and shows that my solution was far off, by about 15 degrees. We're now looking at an elongation from the sun of about 45 degrees, so I don't really expect optical confirmation. (At least, not until after the booster passes the moon and is seen sometime later. This will be similar to the orbits I got, in hindsight, for Chang'es 2 and 3 on their way to the moon : I used the astrometry from well after the lunar flyby to figure out the earth/moon leg.) I've updated the TLEs (same URL as before). The new orbit hits the moon at 15:00 UTC on the 11th, because I don't know what the actual planned orbit is. Assuming it does a close flyby, my trajectory will be a little more than a quarter degree in error at that point, making it a near-miss. -- Bill _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-lReceived on Sat Dec 08 2018 - 11:36:10 UTC
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