At 05:26 PM 9/30/2013, you wrote: >Hi all, > >This is an interesting observation report. Any ideas? Some kind of >out-gasing? > > > >Chris Peat Hi there Chris and others. It was part of the launch of the Falcon 9, launched from Vandenberg AFB at 1600 UT Sep 29. A whole list of associated objects are displayed on the current list of recent launches on celestrak.com You can read all about the launch and its outcome on <http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.htm>http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.htm , clicking on the mission link to see the details. After deploying all its passenbers the upper stage was supposed to ignite again to demonstrate its ability to restart . Given the number of objects associated with 2012 55 it looks to me like it exploded. What Serge saw was of course the 3rd stage and after the failure of the second burn, I suspect. I have no idea as to how attitude control works for the SpaceX upper stage. Members of this list of some years standing will remember the images of the centaur from an Atlas V launch of a USAF weather satellite that Greg Roberts took as it coasted over Cape Town on its way to Europe and to solar orbit. True to the animated models of a coasting Centaur show in earlier launches you could see the expanding shell produced by 5-10? second pulses of the attitude control thrusters. Tony Beresford Cospar 8597 _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l
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