On Monday March 4, 2002 my wife observed what sounds to me like a possible satellite reentry and I'm hoping some of you might have the expertise to help us determine what it was she saw. Observation occurred in Plano, Texas. She was driving west at 6:35 pm local time (00:35 UTC which would be 03/05/2002). The sun had just set below the horizon and she was admiring the pink color in the western sky when she noticed 8 fireballs in the sky. From her description, they were spread in an irregular pattern over an area with about a 10 degree diameter, with the lowest one about 25 degrees over the western horizon. Each of the objects looked like a long, streaming fireball, and one of them had a dark-colored smoke trail. She pulled over to watch them and estimates that they were visible for about 5 minutes, all disappearing at about the same time. She said they were moving extremely slowly, almost imperceptibly from left to right (northerly). I occasionally drag her out of the house to see the ISS or something, so she's familiar with the speed that you normally see visible satellites moving, and she was amazed at how slow these objects were. I asked her how far they moved from left to right during the entire 5 minutes, and she couldn't say, it was such a small amount. First question: Does this sound like a satellite re-entry? OIG's "Query decay by date" returned one object for March 4 and four on March 5. Can anyone refer me to some software that would let me plug in the tle's for these 5 objects to see if any of them coincide with the time/location of the observation? Or, if you already have the expertise or software to do it for me, here's what I've got to go on: Observation time & location: 3/5/2002 00:35 UTC at 33.0248, -96.7810 (Plano, Texas, USA). OIG Decay date query: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------- From: 2002/03/04 Through: 2002/03/05 IntID/Name CatNo Source period Incl Apogee Perigee RCS ------------ ----- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------- -------- 2001-049EB 27183 IND 90.2 97.6 313 257 0.1376 PSLV DEB Launched (2001/10/22) Decayed [2002/03/04] 1994-029LR 24242 US 91.0 81.8 350 297 0.1110 PEGASUS DEB Launched (1994/05/19) Decayed [2002/03/05] 1968-055G 26673 US 97.2 120.5 818 433 0.0009 DELTA 1 DEB Launched (1968/07/04) Decayed [2002/03/05] 2001-049JQ 27292 IND 91.9 97.8 385 351 0.0425 PSLV DEB Launched (2001/10/22) Decayed [2002/03/05] 2001-049KQ 27318 IND 92.3 97.7 410 366 0.0207 PSLV DEB Launched (2001/10/22) Decayed [2002/03/05] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- TLE's for these 5 objects from SatEvo: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- TES PSLV deb EB 313 x 257 km 1 27183U 01049EB 02062.21926880 .03892386 19578-1 10493-1 0 697 2 27183 97.6420 142.8883 0042144 112.9570 246.6733 15.96158413 10493 Pegasus deb LR 227 x 216 km 1 24242U 94029LR 02064.07434174 .69872908 -14431-5 38703-1 0 5604 2 24242 81.7491 16.6972 0008482 35.8436 322.2340 16.19402941299821 Explr 38 deb G 363 x 306 km 1 26673U 68055G 02063.76855728 .44800640 00000-0 16121+0 0 1546 2 26673 120.4313 127.5062 0042419 194.2203 165.7338 15.78728765139208 TES PSLV deb JQ 385 x 351 km 1 27292U 01049JQ 02062.20502223 .04783272 00000-0 37467-1 0 499 2 27292 97.8211 141.2484 0025196 200.1073 159.9196 15.66829109 8029 TES PSLV deb KQ 358 x 333 km 1 27318U 01049KQ 02062.74221647 .04671390 00000-0 26637-1 0 512 2 27318 97.7284 141.6485 0018107 205.5815 154.1440 15.74774535 61499 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------- I appreciate any responses/information anyone can provide... Thanks, Dwayne Crow ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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