Back in 2000, Allen Thomson sent a message to SeeSat-L in which he talked about uncorrelated targets -- tracked by SpaceCom or StratCom but not made public. Here's a link to that message: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Nov-2000/0253.html Here's bibliographical information on an article on that type of topic regarding a European study: "Estimating the number of debris in the geostationary ring", Rüdiger Jehn, Shahram Ariafar, Thomas Schildknecht, Reto Musci, and Michael Oswald. "Available online 30 May 2006." "Abstract - Two thousand seven hundred and ninety uncorrelated targets brighter than magnitude 18.5 were detected by the European Space Agency (ESA) 1-m space debris telescope at Tenerife during more than 1000 observation hours between February 2001 and December 2004. ... It is estimated that there are between 450 and 540 uncatalogued objects brighter than visual magnitude 18.5." [That was at the end of 2004.] I'm guessing that a lot of the debris from the Cosmos-Iridium collision might end up being uncorrelated targets. How will they be able to determine to which object fragments belong? They collided at near right angles, which must have yielded all kinds of velocity vectors for the fragments. On the other hand, how do they know if any given Fengyun 1-C fragment is from the satellite or from the missile that destroyed it? I'm puzzled along with others that apparently Iridium did not get any or enough warning of the potential/impending collision. I would think that they would have maneuvered their payload if they had known long enough in advance. Last week Omid and Omid Rk both went over here. I just barely managed to catch the payload with binoculars for a few seconds as it passed near Procyon, when it tumbled to visibility. On the other hand, the rocket body was quite bright, about magnitude +1.5 -- very easy to see without magnification for its entire pass. Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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