CONTOUR & Russian Rocket Images after OCM6 on July 27

New: 2002 July 29

Gordon Garradd and Tony Beresford write:

From: Joan and David Dunham [dunham@erols.com]
Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 10:19 AM
To: david.dunham@jhuapl.edu
Subject: CONTOUR & Russian rocket: OCM6, nothing to see

From: Gordon Garradd 
To: 'Joan and David Dunham' 
Cc: 'Tony Beresford' 
Subject: RE: OCM6, nothing to see
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 07:16:42 -0000

Hello David,
       You asked:
 >>- So you were recording the spacecraft but could see no 
brightening at the time of the maneuver? 

yes, my images probably went to about mag. 16 or fainter and I saw 
nothing 

 >>- Yes, I would be interested in an animated .gif file of some of
your images.

Finally got it made, it's here. I initially made it twice this linear size, but 
it ended up over 2MB, so then I reduced the images to this size. It 
is approximately 13X12arcmin field of view. 

Another much brighter satellite makes a brief appearance too, but I 
didn't try to discover what it was.. but will do so, Tony Beresford 
is sure to be able to find out. The image was taken at 12:12:13 UTC 
and the centre of the other sat tail is close to: RA 21h 55m 16s,
Dec. +28 deg. 32' 27".

cheers, Gordon
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Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 17:41:28 +0930
To: loomberah@ozemail.com.au
From: Tony Beresford 
Subject: unknown satellite
Cc: dunham@erols.com

Gordon, the satellite that showed up in one of the exposures
that made your animated GIF was 2000 11B, 26090.
It's a Russian upper stage used to deliver the Garuda 1 satellite
(Indonesian comsat) to geo orbit. It's in a 15-degree inclination
orbit 6434 by 35744 km.  The range was about 13,900 km. 
Range to Contour 51,000 km.
Tony Beresford
______________________________________________

- and more from Tony:

Date: Sun, 28 Jul 2002 18:38:28 +0930
To: loomberah@ozemail.com.au
From: Tony Beresford 
Subject: 2000 11 particulars
Cc: dunham@erols.com

This is an excerpt from jonathon mcdowell's
invaluable space report. It incidentally explains why
Dr. Dunham's thoughts might have been elsewhere during
the launch of 2000 11A and B.
Tony Beresford
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The Proton returned to flight on Feb 12 with the launch of the Garuda 1
communications satellite for the ACES consortium which involves PSN of
Indonesia, PLDT of the Phillipines, Lockheed Martin, and the Thai
company Jasmine. The satellite is a Lockheed Martin A2100AXX and has two
large 12-m diameter L-band antennas for cellphone relay. The Proton
placed Garuda and the Blok DM3 on a suborbital trajectory. The first DM
burn put the stack in a 200 km orbit; burn 2 was to geostationary
transfer orbit and burn 3 raised the orbit to 6233 x 35946 km x 16 deg.
The NEAR space probe entered orbit around (433) Eros on Feb 14.
Orbit insertion was at 1534 UTC into an approx. 323 x 370 km orbit
(relative to the center of Eros) with an initial period of about 27 days.
NEAR is controlled from APL in Maryland; click here for more about NEAR.
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