There were 5 S-IVB's that went into heliocentric orbit: Apollos 8, 9 ,10, 11, and 12. Beginning with Apollo 13, the S-IVB's were deliberately impacted on the Moon to calibrate the ALSEP seismometer network. Apollo 9's S-IVB deployed the CSM/LM stack into LEO before being fired off to heliocentric orbit. With a full load of propellant for a nominal TEI burn it would have received a much larger delta-v than any of the others did, since they had to schlep all that "extra" mass to the Moon... TTFN, Geoff +===========================================================+ | Geoff Chester grc@usno.navy.mil Public Affairs Office | | http://www.usno.navy.mil US Naval Observatory | | (202) 762-1438 3450 Massachusetts Avenue, NW | | (202) 762-1489 (FAX) Washington, DC 20392 | |-----------------------------------------------------------| | "Each passing hour brings the Solar System 43,000 miles | | closer to the globular cluster M13 in Hercules; yet there | | are still some misfits who insist there's no such thing | | as progress!" -- Ransom K. Fern | +===========================================================+ > -----Original Message----- > From: Jim Scotti [mailto:jscotti@LPL.Arizona.EDU] > Sent: Sunday, September 05, 1999 17:26 > To: John locker > Cc: seesat-l@blackadder.lmsal.com > Subject: Re: mystery object....1991VG > > > Hi John, <--- snip --> > I personally believe it's an asteroid as > the likelyhood > is much higher, but if it's man-made, I think it's more > likely to be one > of the Saturn V SIVB stages left in high Earth orbit during > Apollo (there > were 2, I think that weren't impacted on the moon or ejected > directly into > solar orbit), and a few years perturbations would be just > about right to > eject it into solar orbit. Also the brightness > determinations we made for > this object make it a bit larger than the circular gives here based on > early observations and its more consistent with the size of the SIVB > stages. <-- snip -->