"shoot down" should be "blow up" or maybe "slam" or "cut in front". > I have been thinking about this shoot down and trying to figure some things > out as to my chances of seeing something reenter over Lebanon PA USA. I have If "slapped" near Hawaii I think your chances are very slim in PA. I expect many pieces to enter within an orbit and most of the rest spread out over a week. Because the inclination is high (58.5 degrees) it won't pass over PA for several orbits afterward. > Seems to me the best place to be > would be about half an orbit ahead of the sat when intercept occurs. The best place would be ahead of the orbit within view of the intercept. Assuming circular orbit or significant delta v then it's true that pieces that have a delta v that slows them down at impact will have their perigee half an orbit ahead, but those orbits may "intersect the earth" long before they get to perigee. All the pieces will have orbits that pass through the impact point one orbit later but many of those orbits will take them into atmosphere too thick to allow these pieces to achieve a full orbit. Any pieces accelerated up (away from earth) will have a perigee more than half an orbit later. Pieces accelerated down will have a new perigee less than half an orbit later. In other words, the point opposite the earth of the intercept won't necessarily have significantly more pieces deorbiting than the rest of that first orbit after intercept. I read that this will be a kinetic only kill (no warhead explosion) which implies that most of the delta v will slow down the satellite pieces which might mean much of the debris will come down within half an orbit. - George Roberts http://gr5.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Feb 17 2008 - 15:18:54 UTC