Re: Decayers from latest Proton launch

Alan Pickup (alan@wingar.demon.co.uk)
Thu, 13 Nov 1997 20:50:37 +0000

The final elset for the Kupon Proton-K rocket is:
Kupon Proton-K r                                 151 x 148 km
1 25046U 97070B   97317.37349553  .65689875  12556-4  15941-2 0   109
2 25046  51.6160 312.6725 0002858 115.2641 244.8685 16.46147752   119

This is 1.6 seconds early against my prediction, the preceding two
elsets having been 0.08 sec and 0.01 sec early. My final SatEvo
evolution suggests that decay may have occurred near the next northbound
equator crossing at about 10:25 UTC near longitude 103 deg E.

                   -----------------------------

The latest elset for the C object is:
Kupon Platform?                                  185 x 175 km
1 25047U 97070C   97317.67996305  .02260896  12241-4  29958-3 0   111
2 25047  51.6223 310.9706 0008018 264.2780  95.7426 16.34627798   164

This is 1.8 seconds early against today's earlier SatEvo evolution.

A new analysis satisfies the equator crossing times for all today's
elsets to within 0.2 seconds and leads (again) to a decay prediction for
Saturday, November 15.5. Prediction:
Kupon Platform?                                  180 x 170 km
1 25047U 97070C   97318.04652788  .02915483  58090-2  31202-3 0 90110
2 25047  51.6218 308.9110 0007157 265.8160  94.1021 16.36573804   227
Kupon Platform?                                  170 x 162 km
1 25047U 97070C   97318.53453391  .04169370  12656-1  30172-3 0 90113
2 25047  51.6208 306.1588 0005815 267.8714  92.0620 16.39952510   300
Kupon Platform?                                  155 x 149 km
1 25047U 97070C   97319.02129981  .07238011  40566-1  20966-3 0 90116
2 25047  51.6193 303.3972 0004056 269.9339  90.0196 16.45194449   381

Alan
-- 
 Alan Pickup | COSPAR site 2707:   55d53m48.7s N   3d11m51.2s W    156m asl
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