Decay watch: 2004 January 21

From: Alan Pickup (alan@wingar.demon.co.uk)
Date: Wed Jan 21 2004 - 15:24:27 EST

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    As Markus Mehring has already reported on SeeSat, there are reports of
    an object hitting the ground in Argentina on the morning of the 20th.
    This may, indeed, be from the decay of #22879, the GPS 2-23 PAM-D r.
    
    The following notices are a summary from current Decay Watch page.
    ____________________________________________________________________
    Object: #22633 = 93- 25 A = Molniya 3-44
    
    Decay predictions:
    Source   Prediction made    Predicted decay at      Latitude Longitude
                   UTC                UTC                  deg      deg
    SCC        Jan 21 05:52     Jan 23 21:54 +-2d        51.2 S   162.5 W
    SatEvo     Jan 21 20:15     Jan 25 17:44 +-1.5d
    
    Latest elset:
    Molniya 3-44                                     3703 x 90 km
    1 22633U 93025A   04021.56826542  .26344420  74693-5  61602-3 0  6589
    2 22633  63.4843 331.6423 2183360 245.2680  90.6120 11.53488819 80631
    
    SatEvo prediction:  See Decay Watch page.
    _____________________________________________________________________
    Object: #22879 = 93- 68 C = GPS 2-23 PAM-D r
    
    Decay predictions:
    Source   Prediction made    Predicted decay at      Latitude Longitude
                   UTC                UTC                  deg      deg
    SCC        Jan 21 01:04     Jan 20 11:57 +-1m         5.6 S    28.5 W
    SatEvo     Jan 20 22:50     Jan 20 12:41 +-2h         6.1 S   166.1 E
    
    Final elset:
    GPS 2-23 r2      3.0  1.5  0.0  6.5 d  3.3       234 x 141 km
    1 22879U 93068C   04020.15194756  .13801213  26169-6  61278-3 0   771
    2 22879  34.7155 289.5813 0070838 154.2422 326.3460 16.31920928295390
    
    Note: My estimate is that this decayed southbound over the western
    Pacific on the rev following that given by the SatEvo-predicted elset:
    GPS 2-23 r2      3.0  1.5  0.0  6.5 d  3.3       165 x 124 km
    1 22879U 93068C   04020.43619872  .67058174  38965+1  64315-3 0 90777
    2 22879  34.7122 287.4574 0031445 157.3149 202.8244 16.47939777295449
    However, the final published elset has an epoch 9 hours before this
    so the decay prediction is uncertain. SCC, on the other hand, assigns
    an uncertainty of only one minute to its analysis, though this is
    identical to that in the previous notice which had an uncertainty of
    five hours.
    I have received a report of an object hitting the ground in NE
    Argentina (Corrientes) at an unspecified time on the morning of the
    20th. The impact point is close to the predicted track of this
    decayer for 11:41 UTC. I hope to obtain and post more details.
    _____________________________________________________________________
    
    
    Alan
    -- 
    Alan Pickup / COSPAR 2707:  55.8968N   3.1989W   +208m   (WGS84 datum)
    Edinburgh  / SatEvo Home Page:   http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/
    Scotland  / Decay Watch: http://www.wingar.demon.co.uk/satevo/dkwatch/
             *
    
    
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