[Neocp_artsats] Three artsats now on NEOCP

Bill Gray pluto at projectpluto.com
Wed Aug 28 11:21:30 EDT 2024


    Just FYI :

- A11acbV is the “secret” Chinese artsat 2024-048A in a distant 
retrograde orbit (DRO) around the moon.  It always has a low elongation 
from the moon.  It was only about 15 degrees from the moon when ATLAS 
got it.  We haven’t known where it was,  which is why Sat_ID didn’t get 
it.  I still don’t have good enough ephems for it,  so I won’t be at all 
surprised if it shows up again… I’m hoping more observations get made. 
(Which will be difficult;  it’s headed for solar conjunction.)

    The (G19) observations for the object are spurious.  I suspect they 
looked where NEOCP told them to (with perturbation omitted) and saw what 
they expected to see.

- A11a0Ff is the booster for the same mission,  in a 2.2-day geocentric 
orbit.  This has been hitting some atmospheric drag,  such that it was 
way the heck away from where I’d predicted it would be.  I’ve fixed 
that.  I have it still under the first ATLAS designation,  A116CgX;  I 
should probably re-designate it to the "official" 2024-048B. 
(Space-Track lost this object early in the game.)

- A119QDa is a “traditional” ETBO in a one-day orbit,  with two previous 
tracklets from ATLAS.  I’d been unable to make the linkage before;  with 
A119QDa added in,  it became obvious.

-- Bill



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