Re: Decay watch: Februray 6

Alan Pickup (alan@wingar.demon.co.uk)
Sat, 6 Feb 1999 19:23:20 +0000

Unfortunately, the decay watch note I posted for the final revs of the
Intelsat 705 Centaur took eight hours to be propagated on the list, at
least back to me. Meantime, SpaceCom issued two further notices for the
Centaur, plus another for the GPS 2-19 PAM-D rocket.
:

Object                            Notice issued    Predicted decay
                                       UTC              UTC

#23529 = Intelsat 705 Centaur r   Feb  6 10:34     Feb  6 12:48 +-3h
#23529 = Intelsat 705 Centaur r   Feb  6 12:41     Feb  6 12:48 +-3h

#22584 = GPS 2-19 r2              Feb  6 15:41     Feb 11 14:11 +-2d

               -------------------------------

No further elsets have appeared for the Centaur, so my final prediction
for its decay at February 6 12:33 UTC +-90 min still stands. This is 15
minutes earlier than SpaceCom's final decay time, but I notice that the
SpaceCom time and location (8.5 deg S, 192.0 deg E, in this case)
appears to be for impact near/at sea level and not the re-entry itself.
If the Centaur had not decayed, it would have overflown SpaceCom's decay
point at 12:41 UTC, not the 12:48 quoted above.

               -------------------------------

The latest elset for the GPS 2-19 PAM-D rocket is:

GPS 2-19 r2      3.0  1.5  0.0  6.5 d            795 x 138 km
1 22584U 93017D   99037.60590208  .07329285  12533-5  78738-3 0  1891
2 22584  34.4712 148.1358 0479326  30.3598 332.4030 15.33138549135975

My current prediction is for its decay at February 11.1 +-1 day, with a
tendency for the time to edge earlier.


Alan
-- 
 Alan Pickup | COSPAR 2707:   55d53m48.7s N   3d11m51.2s W   156m asl
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