Re: #25047 DECAY ALERT FOR U.S.
Alan Pickup (alan@wingar.demon.co.uk)
Sat, 15 Nov 1997 08:48:07 +0000
In message <l03110702b092eb39f0c8@[142.58.124.48]>, Leigh Palmer
<palmer@sfu.ca> writes
>A satellite just reentered over Vancouver, and I think some pieces
>actually fell here in Burnaby! We saw debris falling from the sky
>at 9:11 PST. Could someone please check that time for #25047 and
>verify it? Could there be an exact three hour error in it? If so,
>I'd like to know as soon as possible. BCTV is waiting for news. If
>this is the satellite, what sort is it? "Kupon Platform" doesn't
>mean much to me.
>
>All information is welcome.
>
>It was quite spectacular! More details later.
Yes - I think this was the re-entry of #25047 !
The latest OIG elsets for this are:
Kupon Platform? 142 x 134 km
1 25047U 97070C 97319.08131641 .15065432 12750-4 14910-3 0 202
2 25047 51.6192 303.0607 0006103 301.4540 58.6236 16.50650228 397
Kupon Platform? 139 x 124 km
1 25047U 97070C 97319.14177011 .15418202 12931-4 98767-4 0 212
2 25047 51.6306 302.7054 0011413 329.7985 30.1827 16.53074858 407
These show it running 22 and 33 seconds ahead of my decay prediction of
a few hours ago.
My latest analysis, completed _before_ I heard of the Vancouver
sighting, suggested that there could have been one further equator
crossing:
Kupon Platform? 119 x 118 km
1 25047U 97070C 97319.20217523 .69601697 75634+1 24027-3 0 90236
2 25047 51.6222 302.3467 0001141 273.5094 86.4776 16.57978356 410
with decay on that rev at about 05:29 UTC.
The latlong program (Mike McCants) gives the following ground track:
Height UTC Latitude Longitude
km h m deg N deg W
100 5 7 45.7 134.9
99 5 8 47.6 129.7
99 5 9 49.1 124.1
98 5 10 50.3 118.2
97 5 11 51.2 112.0
97 5 12 51.7 105.6
96 5 13 51.8 99.2
96 5 14 51.5 92.7
95 5 15 50.9 86.3
94 5 16 49.9 80.2
94 5 17 48.6 74.4
93 5 18 46.9 68.9
93 5 19 45.0 63.8
93 5 20 42.9 59.1
93 5 21 40.6 54.7
92 5 22 38.1 50.6
Note that the heights are too high if it was indeed re-entering.
As to what the object is, I don't know - can Vladimir or anyone else
enlighten us ? Whatever it was, it appeared to be quite massive for its
cross-sectional area so that it lost altitude at a relatively slow rate.
That made its decay prediction all the more difficult.
Alan
--
Alan Pickup | COSPAR site 2707: 55d53m48.7s N 3d11m51.2s W 156m asl
Edinburgh | Home: alan@wingar.demon.co.uk +44 (0)131 477 9144
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