Report time 13:00 UTC There is as lot of excitement and confusion about the events last night (UTC). The European observations on Dec 01,22:30 UTC are very likely related to the 2001-53 launch (URGAN/GLONASS). Normally the first decayer of this mission type is the casing of the Proton DM - stage (normally named "Platform" by SPACECOM).At this time I don't see any "Platform" registration by SPACECOM, but the decay of the of 3. Proton stage, generally the "number 2 on the runway".... I think this case is clear. The "European" decayer was the casing. 2001-053D (#26990) Proton 3. stage. SPACECOM'S FINAL REPORT - prepared Dec 02, 04:46 UTC - shows the decay on 02 December, 04:16 +/- 07 minutes (27.0°N, 254.0°E) on a northbound pass over Mexico.Many visual observations from Texas shows a little bit later decay. What can MPM + REENTRY say about this decay? In general I agree with Alans conclusions but I see some small differences in detail. 02 December, 04:22 +/- 02 minutes (40.82°N, 263.35°E) on the same pass over Nebraska. With some iterations I constructed the reentry trajectory under the assumption that the visual observations confirm the decayers below 100 km altitude. Time (UTC) Latitude Longitude(West) Altitude 04:14 25.14° N 106.68 86.35 04:15 28.75° 104.75 82.16 04:17 32.28 102.68 76.25 04:18 35.67 100.50 67.56 04:19 38.68 98.34 53.85 04:20 40.50 96.92 34.10 04:21 40.80 96.66 18.74 04:22 40.82 96.65 10.00 It would very important to see observations from Nebraska.... Harro Harro.Zimmer@t-online.de Berlin, Germany ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Dec 02 2001 - 08:56:51 EST