As Alan Pickup mentioned, Mark Hanning-Lee's observation on Nov 23, about 03:31 UTC from Joshua Tree, CA (34.1°N, 243.7°E) could be the decay of 2003-035C (#28084) Cosmos 2399 debris. I have done a more extended analysis based on four reliable ELSETs and derived a ballistic coefficient (m / Cd x a) of about 48.9 +/- 7%. With the last ELSET.3326.939... and SFX 177, ap 021 my program delivers for Mark's position: Object rising: 03:27.4 UTC AZ: 327.1° EL: 0.0° Maximum Elevation: 03:29.7 UTC AZ: 240.2° EL: 40.1° Object setting: 03:32.0 UTC AZ: 159.6° EL: 0.0° This is in very nice agreement with Mark's observations. The time error in my analysis is about +/- 30 s. My reentry trajectory is only a first approximation - not enough data. The altitude of the decayer at maximum elevation is 82.2 km, 10 - 15 km too high, but it don't change the general conclu- sion that Mark saw really the reentry of 2003-035C. Let me add a few points: SCC gave for # 28084 a RCS of 0.04 m². Is this value fairly identical with the real cross section the object has than a mass in the order of 4 - 5 kg. It is very remarkable that SCC has issued TIP messages for such "small" pieces of (unusual) debris. This is not the official policy. I agree with the statement issued by the Russian rocket forces about the health of Cosmos 2399 - that has Ted Molczan forwarded today. We saw after the debris releasement an orbital maneuvre of the imaging satellite but there is still an open question unanswered by the Russians... the question of the unexpected debris. Harro Harro.Zimmer@t-online.de Berlin, Germany ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Nov 27 2003 - 11:47:42 EST