I have been out of circulation for a couple of weeks or so but I left my tracking equipment operating automatically. Radio observations indicate that the orbit of USA-179 was adjusted about 2007 Jun 21, nineteen days after the last notable change. This manoeuvre was different from any of the significant ones seen in twelve months of close tracking. The mean motion was INCREASED rather than exhibiting the usual decrease. The effect is to increase the eastward component in the geographical longitude drift of the Ascending Node. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. It is possible that the previous adjustment resulted in over-compensation for geographical longitude drift so this one brings it back into line. The current derived value of ndot/2 is .0000121. Latest plot is here: http://www.zarya.info/Results/Daily_switch.htm The two most recent calculated values for Mean Motion are provisional. Bob Christy Lincoln, UK 53.2233 deg North 0.6004 deg West Height 59m No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.9.6/865 - Release Date: 24/06/2007 08:33 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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