Dear SeeSaters: In respect to the discussion let me add some remarks, extracted from an informal talk some times ago with a engineer cosmonaut in charge for the MIR final emer- gency crew and for my own analysis of the PROGRESS reentries over nearly two decades. 1) Under the (realistic) assumption, based on PROGRESS reentries, that the "target region" is around 47°S, 140°W and the decisive command and/or controll of the final burn comes from the Baikonur area, the ascending node of the final orbit must be in the range 16.5°E - 353.5°E. 2) An optimal trajectory to avoid risks for some Pacific Islands (e.g. the cited Nuku alofa, Tonga) has an ascending node around 16.6°E. Mir would pass more then 1000 km east of this Island. The other limit - 353.5°E - shows a pass about only 590 km away. 3) My problem as a decay and reentry analyst for more 35 years is the Russian altitude definition for the "Splashdown area". The (western) space surveil- lance community defines the altitude of reentry at 122 km and the breakup altitude at 78 km. It would be very interesting to see the Russian altitude versus time relation for the MIR reentry. Harro Harro.Zimmer@t-online.de Berlin, Germany ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 : Mon Feb 05 2001 - 07:16:33 PST