Ted Molczan has noted the cataloguing of four debris items from Shenzhou 5, and compared this with the debris catalogued from SZ-1: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/Oct-2003/0172.html Two of the items listed by OIG (28047 and 28048) appear to be consistent with a single decaying object: SZ-5 DEBRIS 1 28047U 03045E 03288.59858718 .06723565 75574-5 70803-2 0 16 2 28047 42.2541 27.1893 0220966 126.2376 235.9125 15.76132015 90 SZ-5 DEBRIS 1 28048U 03045F 03288.40919366 .06429926 75357-5 73822-2 0 11 2 28048 42.2728 28.2532 0245114 121.5841 240.9192 15.69973670 66 SZ-5 DEBRIS 1 28048U 03045F 03289.29623199 .06851002 76470-5 57880-2 0 23 2 28048 42.2799 22.8040 0204295 127.8645 234.0845 15.82186390 209 Apart from the inclination value, the other values for 28047 fit neatly between the two sets of values given for 28048. If this speculation is true, are we therefore dealing with three debris items? Ted suggested that perhaps two objects were catalogued twice each. My quick examination of the five sets of elements released for 28045 and 28046 appears to show them to be consistent with two objects - although the third element set for 28046 appears to show a "manoeuvre" to a marginally higher orbit! SZ-5 DEBRIS 1 28045U 03045C 03288.65756052 .10737333 76147-5 77040-2 0 19 2 28045 42.6001 26.0501 0178040 145.9135 215.3317 15.89505724 93 SZ-5 DEBRIS 1 28045U 03045C 03289.22084999 .12181071 75635-5 64958-2 0 27 2 28045 42.5458 22.4229 0122852 150.7064 213.1722 16.03843559 195 SZ-5 DEBRIS 1 28046U 03045D 03288.40521052 .09777416 75376-5 72701-2 0 19 2 28046 42.5412 27.7067 0191154 149.6856 211.5058 15.86374945 58 SZ-5 DEBRIS 1 28046U 03045D 03289.28178427 .11423017 76630-5 41171-2 0 20 2 28046 42.5505 22.1783 0128725 156.2957 210.0595 16.06724583 202 SZ-5 DEBRIS 1 28046U 03045D 03289.34403849 .08939467 78467-5 44455-2 0 32 2 28046 42.5412 21.7868 0130064 156.4732 201.5933 16.03192004 216 I don't claim any expertise in analysing orbits from TLEs, so I will be interested to see what the acknowledged gurus of these matters make of it! 8-) Eddie Lyons Portsmouth, UK ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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