#25769 = 99- 30 B = Starshine Apologies for this long-delayed update to yesterday's decay. SpaceCom's final notice gives the decay at Feb 18 15:45 UTC +-22m at 34.6 S, 51.1 W. My estimate is Feb 18 15:09 -1+45m near the equator at 170.2 E. The final two elsets for this (one the former still not in OIG's database) are: Starshine 1.0 0.0 0.0 9.0 d 0.30 145 x 143 km 1 25769U 99030B 00049.48035817 .12890540 12629-4 20493-3 0 3425 2 25769 51.5812 6.2360 0002000 269.4929 90.4903 16.48315797 42094 Starshine 1.0 0.0 0.0 9.0 d 0.30 166 x 88 km 1 25769U 99030B 00049.60150974 .22193012 13358-4 55675-4 0 3434 2 25769 51.3223 5.7104 0059441 55.6569 304.3326 16.54690199 42112 Starshine clearly survived the northbound equator crossing and possible decay over Lagos that I had warned of in my final pre-decay posting. Indeed, I understand that SpaceCom's last sensing of the satellite occurred at 15:08 UTC as it was approaching its southbound equator crossing over the W Pacific. The final elset, presumably incorporating this fix but issued many hours later, is obviously in error since it implies that Starshine's apogee had risen considerably, while (to reach the Pacific) it would have had to survive a very deep passage over N Africa. Not surprisingly, I find it impossible to link this elset with the ones that came before. When such an eccentric elset (using both meanings of the term) has been issued before, I have taken it as evidence that the object was suffering very high drag in the early stages of reentry at the time it was observed. If this was the case with Starshine, then I feel justified in placing the decay time at 15:09 UTC, as it crossed the equator. However, it is possible that it survived beyond this point, and perhaps to South America and beyond as both SpaceCom and Harro Zimmer suggest. If this did reach South America, it would have overflown Pategonia at 15:37 UTC, but with the Sun high in a midday sky. More at http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/dkwatch/ Alan -- Alan Pickup | COSPAR 2707: 55d53m48.7s N 3d11m51.2s W 156m asl Edinburgh | Tel: +44 (0)131 477 9144 Fax: +44 (0)870 0520750 Scotland | SatEvo page: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Feb 19 2000 - 11:58:45 PST