Based on their past behaviour, both KeyHoles, USA 116 / 95066A / 23728 and USA 129 / 96072A / 24680, are likely to make major reboost manoeuvres in the next few days. Both would manoeuvre on the same day. Most past major reboosts have occurred when either spacecraft's argument of perigee was over the equator, +/- about 1 day. USA 129's argument of perigee will be on the equator tomorrow, 2001 Jul 02 at about 10 h UTC. The manoeuvres could occur +/- 24 h of that time, but my guess is that they will occur close to that time, perhaps a few hours later. If the spacecraft do not manoeuvre tomorrow, then the next opportunity occurs on 2001 Jul 12, when USA 116's argument of perigee will be over the equator. My ability to participate in the tracking or analysis of these events is in doubt, because of a prior commitment, which requires my availability on short notice. I hope to at least provide a set of USA 129 search orbits that would simplify the post-manoeuvre recovery task for observers. I hope to post that by 2001 Jul 02 12 h UTC, in time to be useful to European observers. Here are Mike McCants' most recent elsets: USA 116 15.0 3.0 0.0 5.1 v 1 23728U 95066A 01175.96089382 .00020000 00000-0 42044-3 0 09 2 23728 97.9050 288.1363 0428000 57.4555 302.5444 14.84282408 03 USA 129 15.0 3.0 0.0 5.1 v 1 24680U 96072A 01179.11693492 .00031000 00000-0 40239-3 0 05 2 24680 97.8272 241.0441 0482000 194.1316 165.8683 14.83188650 03 Ted Molczan ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jul 01 2001 - 08:18:45 PDT