Breaking News: Two Satellites Collide In Orbit

Update:

COSMOS IS FALLING: The first fragments of shattered satellite Cosmos 2251 are about to reenter Earth's atmosphere. According to US Strategic Command, fragment 1993-036PX will reenter on March 12th, followed by 1993-036KW on March 28th and 1993-036MC on March 30th. These are probably centimeter-sized pieces that will disintegrate in the atmosphere, posing no threat to people on the ground.

Source: spaceweather.com

I don't suppose anyone knows where the orbital elements for these two pieces can be found?

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


I confirmed that I have access to them from Space-track.org, but the rules there specifically forbid me to redistribute them, unfortunately. I can tell you that the TLE's for all the debris are located in the publicly accessible celestrak website:
celestrak.com...

reply to post by ngchunter


Thanks NGC!



Probably an outside chance, but if the timing is right I may have a go at photographing the fireball from one of these fragments.

Unfortunately, none of the individual fragments are possible to identify since they don't have unique designations.

I have however found orbital data for the first fragment (1993-036PX) predicted to decay on March 12 here.

Here are the orbital elements for the fragment:

COSMOS 2251 DEB
1 34349U 93036PX 09069.10360870 .03647360 15846-5 28802-2 0 130
2 34349 73.9581 317.4828 0145866 202.3990 157.2576 15.95730011 3318

Thanks guys for the TLE's on the debris.

I put them in the Iridium folder in Orbitron. That made it pop to the top of the load TLE list.(easy to find)

How often do they update the elements? Or more specifically, how often do you guys reload them?

Have you tried to copy load the whole list of debris. Maybe a debris cloud folder to see how the cloud is dispersing.
1993-036PX
Yes, it takes a few moments to find a specific chunk in the list.
Anyway....thanks NGChunter and C.H.U.D.

Peace

reply to post by Zeptepi


I was wondering the same thing Zeptepi.

I did not realize that the designation/name of the pieces was on the list. That was confusing me also!

Since that's the case, rather than manually searching for it, try opening up the file with "notepad" and then go to "Edit", then "Find", and enter the search string. It should take you straight to the piece in question

I got it to work by numering each DEB and loaded a separate file in obitron.

Here is a short video of tracking the debris cloud from 1 of the recently destroyed sats.
Cosmos 2251. I have 457 NORAD radar tracked fragments loaded into Orbitron.

Hope you enjoy.

reply to post by Zeptepi


Thanks for posting that Zeptepi. Very neat

When I first loaded up all the fragments, I had the 'foot prints' turned on on all of them, and basically that's all you could see - just a mass of grey!

I'm going to check if the TLEs are available for any more fragments. The list should have grown a bit by now I would have thought...

Edit to add: the updated COSMOS-2251 TLE file is larger than the old one (82 KB vs 52 KB), so new debris has been added.

I've edited together a TLE file containing both the data for the Cosmos and the Iridium and uploaded here if anyone wants it. Same filename as the previous one I posted before, so be warned that it will want to overwrite the previous one if you downloaded that, not that it matters much.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4aaa329b4ed6.jpg[/atsimg]


[edit on 18-3-2009 by C.H.U.D.]