On Fri, 23 Sep 2005, Gerhard HOLTKAMP wrote: > Iridium 90 is 100 km below the operational Iridium orbits. I guess it acts as > a spare. Therefore its attitude does not have to be as tightly controlled as > those of the operational Iridium sats. A small change in attitude can lead to > a significant change in flare magnitude. The operational ones have small orientation deviations also. Since the central ellipse on the ground where the main reflection falls is so small even deviations like +-0.1 or 0.2 deg can make a big difference in brightness of the flare. It's not uncommon for the flares to be fainter or brighter than predicted. Robert Fenske, Jr. rfenske@swri.edu Sw |The Taming the C*sm*s series: Southwest Research Institute /R---\ | Signal Exploitation & Geolocation Div | I | |"The Martian canals were the San Antonio,Texas USA ph:210-522-3931 \----/ | Martians' last ditch effort." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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