On April 27 I posted: >Subject: Possible fifth object from 2002 003 launch >Since Fairing 2 has not been seen in many months, I take a look up in the >south every once in a while. Last night I spotted an unknown object >on a proper west to east course. I made the assumption that this object was not Fairing 2 since I did not observe any flashes. My observation just after culmination was 02:13:15 UT April 27. On April 30, Robert Fenske posted: >Last Saturday >I observed a pass of the MDS 1 Fairing 1 (02003C) in which it was flashing to >0/-1 every 7..8 seconds -- pretty much the same as Mike described. About >half an hour earlier, from ~02:13 to ~02:17 27 Apr UTC (times are for >culmination to shadow entry) I saw a similar pass by a unknown satellite >(unknown in that I couldn't find a reasonable match to anything). It had >roughly the same flash characteristics, flashing to 0 or -1 every 7ish >seconds. I have had private communications with Robert and it is clear that he did observe this same object from about 80 miles south of me (about 20 degrees higher in the sky at a range of 450 miles) and it did flash like Fairing 1 or 2. So, under the assumption that this is Fairing 2, I have taken the 9-month-old elset for Fairing 2 and made my best guess for its current orbit (fitting my one obs on April 27): MDS 1 Fairing2 1 90012U 03116.99913668 0.00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 07 2 90012 29.1205 52.5620 7205864 73.8457 286.1541 2.27537987 06 I hope that this elset will be off by less than 2 minutes when this object makes another favorable pass over the southern US this Saturday evening about 03:00 UT (May 3 EDT/CDT - May 4 UT). Mike McCants Austin, TX ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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