A recent elset shows that Iridium 84 is being raised, presumably to fill the gap left by the failed Iridium 9 IRIDIUM 84 1 25530U 98066D 01005.63685683 -.18147655 00000-0 -55546+1 0 1485 2 25530 86.5376 340.1197 0002257 311.1302 49.0069 14.51006879116045 A slightly earlier elset is from prior to the manouver: IRIDIUM 84 1 25530U 98066D 01005.02098629 .00002830 00000-0 51157-3 0 1476 2 25530 86.5893 340.3425 0002820 96.2437 263.9092 14.66094639115950 So, soon, there should once again be a complete constellation. That Iridium 84 has been chosen seems somewhat of a surprise. It has not been regularly manouvered to maintain its orbit in the past. I have only one note of it being manouvered in the recent past - back in September when its orbit was raised. See http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Sep-2000/0303.html This is in contrast to Iridium 86 (also spare in the same orbital plane), of which the orbit has been regularly maintained, along with (in other planes) Iridiums 77, 82 and (in recent months) 14(a), 20(a) and 21(a). That makes 7 spares which are being maintained. At the Iridium Satellite LLC press conference In December 2000 (see http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/constellations/iridium/conference-call-Dec-2000.html), a figure of 8 operational spares was quoted. So which is the other operational spare? -- Rod Sladen, Beeston, Nottinghamshire, UK, 52.923N, 1.219W ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
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