Peter Wakelin observed USA 200 for more than 5 hours last night, followed a little later by Greg Roberts, who insists he is not a morning person, but nevertheless was up in the middle of the night once again. Together they observed over an arc spanning about 68 percent of one revolution, including a passage through apogee and one very nearly through perigee, which should yield reasonably accurate elements: USA 200 0.0 0.0 0.0 3.7 v 1154 X 39160 km 1 32706U 08010A 08090.69427478 .00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 04 2 32706 63.8235 42.0797 7161451 270.8042 15.3945 2.00838803 03 Arc 2008 Mar 30.83 - 31.17, WRMS residuals = 0.015 deg The new tracking reveals a small manoeuvre on 2008 Mar 30 near roughly 10:49 UTC (could be off by tens of minutes), not far in altitude from apogee. The manoeuvre moved USA 200's orbital plane east by about 0.4 deg, reduced its argument of perigee by about 0.28 deg, and raised its perigee about 48 km. USA 200's plane is 83.6 deg east of its sister spacecraft, USA 184. It arrives at apogee about 5 h earlier than USA 184. USA 184 5.0 2.0 0.0 3.7 v 1120 X 39230 km 1 29249U 06027A 08082.43005794 .00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 04 2 29249 63.3499 319.5790 7176177 271.1184 15.1343 2.00636578 00 Ted Molczan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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