RE: mystery object....1991VG

chester.geoff@usno.navy.mil
Tue, 7 Sep 1999 10:51:27 -0400 

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

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> -----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 -->