Decay watch: Iridium Long March rocket

Alan Pickup (alan@wingar.demon.co.uk)
Sun, 18 Jan 1998 21:46:07 +0000

The latest elset for this...
Iridm CZ-2C r   10.0  3.0  0.0  3.0 d            251 x 151 km
1 25079U 97077C   98018.61456594  .03597645 -12470-5  32585-3 0  1244
2 25079  86.2681  99.6131 0076312   3.0301 357.1446 16.26960665  6509
...shows it running 6.0 seconds early against the "9113" SatEvo
prediction I posted yesterday.

A new SatEvo evolution satisfies the equator crossing times given by
this and the preceding eight elsets for today (all for different orbits)
with a mean error of 0.14 sec (maximum residual 0.25 sec). It leads to
decay at January 20.15 +-0.25d.

Predicted elsets to decay:
Iridm CZ-2C r   10.0  3.0  0.0  3.0 d            234 x 149 km
1 25079U 97077C   98019.04464914  .04555596  93134-2  32333-3 0 91249
2 25079  86.2668  99.3623 0064827   1.1447 358.8700 16.30518474  6575
Iridm CZ-2C r   10.0  3.0  0.0  3.0 d            208 x 145 km
1 25079U 97077C   98019.53489608  .06996517  29279-1  32027-3 0 91242
2 25079  86.2649  99.0745 0048525 358.9823   1.0077 16.35954045  6650
Iridm CZ-2C r   10.0  3.0  0.0  3.0 d            190 x 141 km
1 25079U 97077C   98019.77929772  .10365283  70483-1  31790-3 0 91243
2 25079  86.2635  98.9300 0037860 357.8969   2.0872 16.40067280  6699
Iridm CZ-2C r   10.0  3.0  0.0  3.0 d            161 x 132 km
1 25079U 97077C   98020.02291061  .22683884  40553+0  31391-3 0 91249
2 25079  86.2611  98.7848 0022697 356.8068   3.1787 16.47239553  6732
Iridm CZ-2C r   10.0  3.0  0.0  3.0 d            149 x 127 km
1 25079U 97077C   98020.08360685  .35552039  10900+1  32975-3 0 91248
2 25079  86.2601  98.7483 0016922 356.5331   3.4552 16.50642201  6746
Iridm CZ-2C r   10.0  3.0  0.0  3.0 d            124 x 114 km
1 25079U 97077C   98020.14413012 1.20132729  12973+2  47438-3 0 91246
2 25079  86.2585  98.7117 0007626 356.2582   3.7359 16.57892158  6751

Alan
-- 
 Alan Pickup | COSPAR site 2707:   55d53m48.7s N   3d11m51.2s W    156m asl
 Edinburgh   | Home:      alan@wingar.demon.co.uk       +44 (0)131 477 9144
 Scotland    | SatEvo satellite page: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/