Ed Cannon wrote:
> For ... January 20, for the Austin area, Iridflar is
> predicting four Iridium flares within less than four
> minutes.
later, he wrote:
> Almost amazingly, the sky was clear this morning, and I
> went out into the terribly cold -3 degrees Celsius <grin>
> weather and saw all four of them flare pretty much as
> predicted.
They were the following:
Iridium 21 ("?" 25778, 99-032B; formerly 21A)
Iridium 73 ("?" 25344, 98-032C)
Iridium 14 ("?" 25777, 99-032A; formerly 14A)
Iridium 66 (25289, 98-021E)
So here we have a report of Iridium 73 flaring *as expected*.
Searching SeeSat-L shows reports of a *no-show* from Iridium 73:
http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Aug-2000/0458.html,
but also a report of an *unexpected* flare from Iridium 73:
http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Aug-2000/0008.html
Could it be that one or more of the MMAs on Iridium 73 are stuck in the wrong
position?
It would be helpful if reports of flares/lack of flares in this situation indicated
which MMA was expected to cause the flare.
I am surpised that Iridium 73 can still be maintaining its attitude, as it does
not appear to have any periodical orbital adjustments.
Further reports of observations of Iridium 73, and also of Iridium 2, Iridium
51, and Iridium 69, would be most helpful in establishing the status of these,
all of which are believed to have failed, partially or completely, in some way
or other.
--
Rod Sladen, Beeston, Nottinghamshire, UK, 52.923N, 1.219W
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jan 21 2001 - 08:05:14 PST