Acceleration Report: 76- 11 B = 8646

Kurt Jonckheere (kjonckheere@unicall.be)
Tue, 4 Jun 1996 22:06:16 +0200 

You haven't heart a lot of me last weeks caused by the fact that I moved
to the (more light-polluted :-(  city where I work.  My new phone connection
arrived some hours ago.

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I've found one rocket that has an extremely high drag value today compared
with elements of last weekend.  This was a jump in Mean Motion of about
150m.  I have no idea if such an old object will start flashing again.
It was seen Steady about a year ago by Jean-Pierre Rohart.

We have some old object that started flashing again, think at 79- 30 B, so
there is a chance.  Who checks it first?!

Next days must show if this high drag will continue.
8646
1 08646U 76011B   96152.19124983 +.00000012 +00000-0 -30432-5 0 09174
2 08646 082.9609 230.5211 0006616 086.0875 274.1047 13.73177764018322
8646
1 08646U 76011B   96156.49025434  .00087413  00000-0  93396-1 0  9104
2 08646  82.9628 227.3594 0006910  73.3475 286.7691 13.73215577 18917

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By chance, I also found the rocket with the record MMjump since I've
started checking orbital elements.  The record-rocket is the 88- 80 B=
19468 which had a sudden chance in Semi Major Axis around 
94-10-29 +- 5 days of 800 metres!!

I didn't checked it, but this must have a serious influence(error)
 on passing times if one was still using the elements from before 
the jump...

Our ppas-archive only contains this observation since 1994:
88- 80 B 94-10-28 18:40      TC                       S, mag +5.5

Tristan saw it Steady at the end of Octobre '94, probably *just*
before it started to accelerate.  It's a pitty that it hasn't been
observed for almost 2 years.  If it had started flashing then, it 
will maybe already have become steady or is it still flashing??

latest elements:
1 19468U 88080  B 96151.10124393  .00000449  00000-0  28970-3 0  3919
2 19468  99.1704 188.3051 0071772 190.8317 169.1307 14.01739396395321


Both objects need to be observed ASAP !

Kurt J

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I will prepare the next PPAS-update around June 10.  So if you haven't
sent your observations yet, do it before next Monday.


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        Kurt Jonckheere (kjonckheere@unicall.be)   51.2 N  2.9 E 
    observations collector for the Belgian Working Group Satellites: 
Send your observations of flashing satellites, preferrably in the correct
     PPAS format to obs@physics.oxford.ac.uk or obs@physics.ox.ac.uk
              I Dreamed I Dream      --       Sonic Youth
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