[Neocp_artsats] Artsat tracklets currently on NEOCP
Bill Gray
pluto at projectpluto.com
Tue Feb 13 12:12:52 EST 2024
Hello all,
NEOCP is currently a busy place for artsats, with six artsat
tracklets of five objects :
A113PTq = ZTs0201 is a reappearance of an artsat last seen in
December, A10ZsPt = A10Zv6L.
A113PuI is also a reappearance of an artsat, A10Zuus = A10Zol2.
Both are ETBOs that had gone unobserved long enough for their
ephemerides to become somewhat unreliable, which is how they sneaked
back on to NEOCP.
ZTs0200 is a reappearance of A1123SR, which was put on NEOCP on
January 6. We had nowhere near enough data for an orbit then.
A113Vwd has been followed up by Sam Deen from (X09), giving us a
pretty good orbit. It has H=27.2, which by itself would suggest it's
not an ETBO (they tend to be around H=30 or smaller), and Sam's data
confirms that it doesn't have a high area/mass ratio. It's probably a
recently launched, not yet catalogued booster. It has a perigee of
about 140 km, so it may not last all that long.
The various lists of recent launches, however, don't show anything
having gone beyond LEO (except Peregrine, in a very different orbit,
and all its bits and pieces are accounted for).
I've posted/updated TLEs for the above four objects. The TLEs will
suffer from the usual problem for the ETBOs (objects get blown off
prediction) and drag will probably cause trouble for A113Vwd.
ZTs0199 is a definite artsat. I can't identify it. It's almost
certainly ETBOs, but we don't have a heck of a lot of data.
In addition to the six tracklets mentioned above, ZTs0196 is
probably junk. The heliocentric solutions are believable, though.
-- Bill
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