Re: Decay update: October 14

Alan Pickup (alan@wingar.demon.co.uk)
Wed, 15 Oct 1997 19:47:48 +0100

In message <3444D9D5.C4057675@tt-tech.se>, Bjoern Gimle <bjorn@tt-
tech.se> writes
>Last (latest??) elset on OIG at 13:22 UT was 
>
>Element set number = 1
>1 24908U 97043F   97288.47305831  .10144961 -14033-5  36726-3 0  1634
>2 24908  82.6031 342.0620 0023045 137.1462 223.8436 16.41579739  8761
>
>ndot2 and MM look too small compared to Alan's evolution, but on the
>other hand I don't get his results when using his 287.55 elset !
>With elset 163, my SatEvo gives the following :
>
> ... <snipped>

The latest elset from OIG is:
Iridm Delta r    5.9  2.4  0.0  5.6 d            163 x 140 km
1 24908U 97043F   97288.59470742  .16560798 -13707-5  33729-3 0  1667
2 24908  82.6011 341.9138 0017654 147.5192 212.7249 16.45490302  8788
confirming that it outlasted the SatEvo evolution I posted yesterday.
In fact, Bjoern, that was not generated from the raw OIG elset at
97287.55 - I had extrapolated that OIG elset to a (SatEvo) equator
crossing and replaced its ndot2 and MM terms by values computed by
forcing a SatEvo evolution through the elsets at 97286.56, 97287.12 and
97287.55. You can obtain that evolution by running SatEvo with the seed
elset:
Iridm Delta r    5.9  2.4  0.0  5.6 d            253 x 173 km
1 24908U 97043F   97286.56966449  .02890138  29514-2  79709-3 0 91506
2 24908  82.6147 344.2486 0061228 148.6185 211.7483 16.22414377  8454

Unfortunately, the Delta was not paying attention and was already
running 8 seconds late by the epoch of the OIG elset at 97287.92.

If my new analysis is better, it may have decayed at about October 15.68
(16:20 UTC) or it may have survived another 30-60 minutes. My new
evolution through the equator crossings of the latest elsets runs:
Iridm Delta r    5.9  2.4  0.0  5.6 d            177 x 147 km
1 24908U 97043F   97288.47292115  .14402651  16622+0  53133-3 0 91630
2 24908  82.6031 342.0622 0023050 137.1468 223.0331 16.41483927  8764
Iridm Delta r    5.9  2.4  0.0  5.6 d            170 x 144 km
1 24908U 97043F   97288.53384559  .18218212  28377+0  50676-3 0 91632
2 24908  82.6024 341.9906 0019817 136.8916 223.2637 16.43451072  8779
Iridm Delta r    5.9  2.4  0.0  5.6 d            160 x 139 km
1 24908U 97043F   97288.59468583  .25526369  62365+0  48995-3 0 91637
2 24908  82.6015 341.9188 0015946 136.6360 223.4895 16.46055398  8784
Iridm Delta r    5.9  2.4  0.0  5.6 d            146 x 132 km
1 24908U 97043F   97288.65540542  .47234700  26470+1  51147-3 0 91630
2 24908  82.6002 341.8468 0010771 136.3797 223.7054 16.50165659  8790
OIG may yet issue an elset near this final epoch.

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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