Fwd: Would Like People To Try To Track Decaying Uncataloged Object

From: Charles Phillips via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>
Date: Wed, 3 May 2017 10:41:22 -0600 (MDT)
All -

Here is a request that perhaps might be fun. Object 90059 is possibly a Centaur and is decaying from a geosynchronous transfer orbit. Inclination is 28.66 degrees - came from Cape Canaveral no doubt. Perigee is approximately 310 km so it is not long for this world; perigee is over the South Pacific unfortunately. 

I am told by reliable people that the object is tracked by ISON but the epoch is 2017 day 20. People might be able to track it from Europe, near apogee, or New Zealand near perigee. 

After doing much research I cannot find anyone who is predicting reentries for these lonely uncatalogued objects, it seems that they should be retired with dignity as well. Certainly the JSpOC will not alert anyone to this reentry. 

I have a ground trace on my Twitter feed and anyone can get the TLE from the usual sources and run predictions themselves. Of course this one is NOT on space-track.org

Thanks for any help you can give and please let me know if you have any questions. I have exchanged email with Ted Molczan and some of the other usual suspects as you might expect. 

Charles Phillips
Spaceflight Research, LLC
Houston, Texas
713-882-4578 

https://twitter.com/SpacefltResrch
_at_SpacefltResrch
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Received on Wed May 03 2017 - 11:42:15 UTC

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