Greg Roberts has completed his recovery of USA 186, which he reported as missing on Jan 12. When last observed, by Tony Beresford, on 2007 Jan 09 at 13:20 UTC, the object's perigee had been within a few degrees of the equator, one of the circumstances in which this type of object is known to make some of its orbital maintenance manoeuvres. Greg observed the object on Jan 13, not far from one of two search orbits, making several precise observations over a short arc. Unfortunately, Greg was unable to observe again until last night, which necessitated another search. During a 150 min planar search, Greg observed the object on two consecutive passes, making several precise observations on both. Analysis of all of Greg's post-manoeuvre observations yields the following orbit: USA 186 15.0 4.0 0.0 5.3 v 1 28888U 05042A 07020.81258065 .00012555 00000-0 11999-3 0 02 2 28888 97.8661 84.8910 0539235 143.3381 220.6029 14.76600645 03 Arc 2007 Jan 13.89 - 20.87, WRMS residuals = 0.011 deg The manoeuvre appears to have been made near the perigee passage of 2007 Jan 11 at 15:03 UTC. The main results were, approximately, a 0.05 deg reduction in inclination, a 2 deg increase in argument of perigee, and a 9 km increase in apogee - subject to confirmation through additional observation. Ted Molczan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jan 21 2007 - 12:43:55 EST