Wow ... Deep Purple were right !!!! Black Knight is a long way from home !
Who'd have thought a rock band would be ahead of the game lol

Presumably due to the break between academic semesters, no new ephemeris data for 9U01FF6 has been forthcoming from the Harvard College Observatory, Distant Artificial Satellite Observation page since the first of the year. I have enquired about this, but received no reply. Unfortunately, they are the only known source of an updated ephemeris, and one with apogee and perigee distances. The Spring semester at Harvard begins on Jan. 25th, so perhaps the backlog of data will be cleared, and daily updates resumed at that time. 9U01FF6 reached a higher speed at it last near pass at Earth on Dec. 30th. It thus presumably attained a more distant apogee on Jan 14th, than previously. It is now working its way back toward Earth, and it expected to pass nearest on Jan. 30th. It has been pointed out to me by Franz Bauer that the data points for the Oct., Nov., and Dec., 2009 close approaches can be used to mathematically infer a exponentially decreasing perigee. This method predicts a close approach for January of 17,095 miles. We shall see.

Another Earth-scan due in about 6 days. Unfortunately, the Klingon empire will receive another monthly sub-space report that... the Humans have still not developed anti-gravity flight.

Given the continued failure of Harvard College Observatory to update its ephemeris for the 'mystery object' 9U01FF6, I sought and found a satisfactory substitute at the NASA/JPL Horizons web interface. The Ephemeris there predicts that the object will reach perigee on February 6th, not January 30th, and that the minimum distance will be 49,387 miles. The perigee distance will thereafter continue to increase at each pass, for some time. It seems apparent that the orbit is unstable, presumably because at apogee the object exceeds that fraction of the Hill Radius which allows stable prograde orbits. The Earth's gravity does not have a really firm hold on the object when it is farthest away.

The score is now: 4 known passes by the 'Mystery Object'...
and 4 failures to identify it by the astronomers and the space station crew.

The score is now: 5 known passes by the 'Mystery Object'...
and 5 failures to identify it by the astronomers and the space station crew. Even though the ISS space station now has brand new (and spotless clean) windows.

The score is now: 6 known passes by the 'Mystery Object'...
and 6 failures to identify it by the astronomers and the space station crew.

Strange that they can find and identify unexpected asteroids, but not an object with a known path.
I wonder if they are really trying.