Cees Bassa, Russell Eberst and Greg Roberts contributed observations used to update the following element sets. NOSS 3-6 (A) 1012 X 1198 km 1 38758U 12048A 12277.19223062 .00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 03 2 38758 63.4382 352.7085 0124682 179.3730 180.7473 13.40854454 00 Arc 20121001.12-1003.21 WRMS resid 0.015 totl 0.008 xtrk NOSS 3-6 (P) 1013 X 1198 km 1 38773U 12048P 12277.19202380 .00000000 00000-0 00000-0 0 00 2 38773 63.4401 352.5172 0123769 178.4161 181.7280 13.40771956 09 Arc 20121002.73-1003.21 WRMS resid 0.010 totl 0.008 xtrk Cees and Greg observed 12048P progressively early relative the epoch 12276.147 elements, indicating that it had manoeuvred lower, reducing the rate of closing by 12048A. That this occurred while 12048P was leading, indicates that it is intended to remain the leader. Additional supporting evidence is found in their relative RAAN. Once again, I have found that 12048P's RAAN is nearly 0.2 deg less than that of 12048A, as expected of the leader of a NOSS 3 pair. Mike McCants obtained similar results. Yesterday's results had them closer in RAAN, but they were based on a shorter arc and fewer observations. At its present rate of closing, 12048A will reach the ~8 s standard temporal spacing behind 12048P, about 26 revs after the epoch of the above elements, early on Oct 05, about 03 h UTC. One or the other will manoeuvre to match the mean motion of the other. If, at the end of the manoeuvres, 12048P leads 12048A, then we may decide to swap designations, in accordance with our (not always followed) conventional to assign "A" to the leader. Additional information about NOSS: http://www.satobs.org/noss.html Ted Molczan _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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