KFetter wrote: "Boy, this one perigee is sure low. MOLNIYA 3-44 1691 x 81 km 1 22633U 93025A 04024.35340688 .64355414 10539-4 59716-3 0 6758 2 22633 63.4445 325.0802 1107602 246.2651 101.9556 14.02263398 80987" Wow. Is that low enough to produce a visible glow in the thin air at that altitude? And it's dropping fast. The TLE on Heavens-Above is from five weeks ago and has the apogee above 22,000km: >>>> The orbit data is extracted from the following two-line orbital elements, 1 22633U 93025A 03350.08500419 .03320974 00000-0 10763-2 0 5378 2 22633 63.5791 1.8085 6330403 244.8300 38.7207 3.69745067 78314 Epoch (UTC): 2:02:24 AM, Tuesday, December 16, 2003 Eccentricity: 0.6330403 Inclination: 63.5791° Perigee Height: 104 km Apogee Height: 22,470 km Right Ascension of Ascending Node: 1.8085° Argument of Perigee: 244.8300° Revolutions per Day: 3.69745067 Mean Anomaly at Epoch: 38.7207° Orbit Number at Epoch: 7831 <<<< It's aerobraking at work. Put the perigee in the upper atmosphere, and the orbit rapidly circularizes. Frank E. Reed [X] Mystic, Connecticut [ ] Chicago, Illinois ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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