[Neocp_artsats] Four artsats from NEOCP

Bill Gray pluto at projectpluto.com
Mon Nov 11 19:39:35 EST 2024


    The first three are cases where atmospheric drag threw predictions off :

    (1) A11e7Ki = 2023-137E = SLIM booster.  David Rankin at CSS noticed 
this one promptly,  and found another tracklet for it from (703) data. 
So it didn't stay on NEOCP very long.

    We had kept careful track of this object for the first half of the 
year.  Then it hit atmospheric drag and we lost it.  (T05) ATLAS got it 
a few degrees off nominal.  That was close enough for David to see the 
link,  but a little much for Sat_ID.  So it ended up on NEOCP.

    The (T05) data,  plus David's (703) tracklet,  enabled me to link in 
A11d6Fy,  a short arc on NEOCP from October 20.  At the time,  the arc 
was too short to say anything except that A11d6Fy was junk.  Now,  it's 
securely identified as 2023-137E = SLIM booster.

    As expected earlier,  the object will hit the atmosphere again and 
re-enter near the end of the year :

https://www.projectpluto.com/pluto/mpecs/23137e.pdf

    (2) Sar2783 = 'Multijunk'.  Again,  we hadn't observed the object 
for some time and it had drifted quite a bit from prediction.

    (3) A11dPcF = 2022-157B.  We normally just rely on Space-Track TLEs 
for this object.  It hit the upper atmosphere in mid-October,  and it 
appears Space-Track didn't notice (this has happened several times 
before).  This will lower its orbital period from about 1140 minutes to 
about 920 minutes :

https://www.projectpluto.com/pluto/mpecs/22157b.pdf

    Since we can't rely on Space-Track for it anymore,  I've generated 
TLEs for it.	

   (4) AlldXi4 is a plain,  ordinary empty trash bag object. (Q06) in 
Japan got a tracklet on it,  which enables determining an area/mass 
ratio of 34 +/- 5 m^2/kg,  right in the range we expect for ETBOs :

https://www.projectpluto.com/neocp2/mpecs/A11dXi4.htm

    I can't link it to any previous tracklets.

-- Bill



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