I was looking at the visitor's pages of "The Satellite Encyclopedia" Web site and found a couple of things that almost seemed like anomalies to me. One example regards BS/Yuri 3B (21668, 91-60A): http://www.tbs-satellite.com/tse/online/sat_yuri_3b.html Under "End of Life" they have "Out of Service" in March 1999 with the cause being "deorbited". However, this near-geosynch flashing satellite is still in orbit and currently is drifting westward night to night over the USA. Another one like this, said to be "deorbited" but still in orbit, is GSTAR 2 (16649, 86-26A): http://www.TBS-satellite.com/tse/online/sat_gstar_2.html To be fair, their entry on Lacrosse 1 (19671, 88-106B) has both "deorbited" and "decayed": http://www.TBS-satellite.com/tse/online/sat_lacrosse_1.html So, I wonder if the term "deorbited" does not mean "not in orbit any longer" (i.e., decayed or re-entered) as I had assumed, but instead means something like "removed from operational orbit", at least for the retired geosynchs...? Somewhat relatedly (another terminology issue), I found that on TSE ("The Satellite Encyclopedia"), the Yuri and GStar satellites are classified as being "GE 3000" models, while on Mark Wade's Encyclopedia Astronautica they're called "AS 3000". Note that this is not the common name of the individual satellites, but the name of the model or series or type of payload produced by one manufacturer. I think we may have a clear night tonight.... Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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