Northern hemisphere observers last saw USA 129 on 2005 Oct 09 UTC. It had been expected to make a routine small re-boost as early as Oct 15. On Oct 28, South African observer Greg Roberts performed a planar search, and found the object, running about 28 min late relative its Oct 09 orbit, confirming that the reboost had taken place: http://satobs.org/seesat/Oct-2005/0268.html The following estimated elements should be reasonably accurate in the near term; the greatest uncertainty being in the mean motion: USA 129 15.0 3.0 0.0 5.3 v 1 24680U 96072A 05301.80353066 .00011207 00000-0 15000-3 0 07 2 24680 97.9602 3.3814 0525000 88.1723 277.9511 14.73500000 07 On Oct 28, Greg also made his second observations of USA 186, launched on 2005 Oct 19 UTC, into nearly the same plane as USA 129, which it is intended to replace. The following elements are a very good fit: USA 186 15.0 3.0 0.0 5.3 v 261 X 1047 km 1 28888U 05042A 05301.82157479 .00009787 00000-0 10000-3 0 05 2 28888 97.8760 3.6534 0558690 154.6890 208.2851 14.71233989 03 Arc 2005 Oct 25.82 - 28.88, WRMS residuals = 0.010 deg I used fixed estimates of decay rate and inclination; all other elements were permitted to vary. Increasing the inclination slightly, to 97.95 deg, resulted in a slightly less eccentric orbit: 265 X 1043 km. Additional tracking will yield a more precise orbit. USA 186's initial orbit is very similar to that of USA 129, per this example 29 days after its launch: 262 X 1039 km 1 24680U 96072A 97 18.85811921 .00006385 00000-0 65978-4 0 08 2 24680 97.8745 84.2363 0552461 70.2327 255.0973 14.72378315 04 Assuming that 95066A and 01044A remain in orbit, there are now a record-breaking four KH-11 class satellites in orbit at the same time. Ted Molczan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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