I have updated my plot of decay predictions of ROSAT (1990-049A / 20638), made by myself, The Aerospace Corporation, USSTRATCOM, and Harro Zimmer. http://satobs.org/seesat_ref/misc/ROSAT_decay_predictions_v11.pdf 1. Updated since my previous report: USSTRATCOM's latest TIP prediction, issued Oct 22 at 23:59 UTC, predicts decay on Oct 23 at 02:04 UTC, +/- 2 h: http://www.space-track.org 2. Unchanged since my previous report The Aerospace Corporation's latest prediction, based on the epoch 11294.8581050 TLE, is Oct 23 at 11:12 UTC +/- 10 h: http://reentrynews.aero.org/1990049a.html Harro's latest prediction, issued Oct 22 at 14:30 UTC, is 23 October, 04:17 UTC +/- 4 h: http://satobs.org/seesat/Oct-2011/0233.html My latest Satevo prediction, based on the epoch 11294.8581050 TLE, is Oct 23 near 10:22 h UTC. Uncertainty is about 7 h, based on the 20 percent of time remaining to decay rule of thumb. I am also experimenting with Alan Pickup's Satana program, which attempts to fit more realistic decay terms to the existing TLEs. Using that method, I obtain predicted decay on Oct 23 at 01:37 UTC. I have included two new plots, which include the Satana results at daily intervals since Oct 13. The results seem interesting, but I am still learning how to use this method, so beware! Ted Molczan _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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