Russian spacecraft 'hurtling towards Earth

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Cauliflower

It should take days at least before it comes down. Orbits aren't perfectly circular. It'll climb back up at some point. As time goes on the it'll go lower and lower until it comes back down.

Would this explain why its altitude now sits around the 160 mile mark instead of the 119 it said the other day ? But its starting to decend again


Now at 130 mile mark its dropped 30 miles in under 20 mins or so

a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

Yes. The orbit is an off-centre oval. If you know what a typical comet orbit looks like, it's a lot like that.

originally posted by: ThePeaceMaker

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Cauliflower

It should take days at least before it comes down. Orbits aren't perfectly circular. It'll climb back up at some point. As time goes on the it'll go lower and lower until it comes back down.

Would this explain why its altitude now sits around the 160 mile mark instead of the 119 it said the other day ? But its starting to decend again

Now at 130 mile mark its dropped 30 miles in under 20 mins or so

Its orbits decaying.

119 mile mark you saw was the lowest point or the perigee. The 160 mile mark is likely the highest point or the apogee.

Each time its hits the perigee Atmospheric resistance will eat away its speed lowering the apogee until the orbit decays completely and it reenters and gets burned up.

originally posted by: butcherguy
Has anyone seen a list of the cargo that it is carrying?

Cargo list

Nothing exciting or particularly dangerous.

Just supply's for the ISS. Food, water, tools, monno propellant and personal letters mainly.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Cauliflower

It should take days at least before it comes down. Orbits aren't perfectly circular. It'll climb back up at some point. As time goes on the it'll go lower and lower until it comes back down.

^^^^What he said

Cheers guys I finally understand something

The thing that is a little strange is that the ISS orbit is almost circular at 402 to 409 KM s.
Progress M 27M has an elliptic orbit more common to communications and recon satellites.
It would actually be more consistent with an old satellite whos orbit decayed below the 200 KM Perigee minimum.

This was a massive undershoot if it was intended to reach the space station not just some communications glitch.

originally posted by: Cauliflower
The thing that is a little strange is that the ISS orbit is almost circular at 402 to 409 KM s.
Progress M 27M has an elliptic orbit more common to communications and recon satellites.
It would actually be more consistent with an old satellite whos orbit decayed below the 200 KM Perigee minimum.

This was a massive undershoot if it was intended to reach the space station not just some communications glitch.

No that low orbit was just the insertion orbit. They would ajust the orbit to match planes with the ISS later.

They won't just launch directly at the ISS to avoid the risk of a out of control craft crashing into it

a reply to: Jonjonj

You're essentially correct. But I commented that the rate of decay is small on LEO objects, so only moving a small amount towards the earth. Even though technically in space, there are still enough gas molecules to cause drag.

You can peruse Wikipedia for information. en.wikipedia.org...

I'm a AMSAT-UK member so play with satellites for fun. You can too.

a reply to: Meduzi

I got my knowledge in KSP

a reply to: Meduzi

Do you know if the video downlink is still working and if it's on 463mhz? I tried to find out and couldn't find anything concrete.

a reply to: crazyewok

It's standard training nowadays, due to austerity.

a reply to: AgentSmith

I don't know. I'm planning on moving soon so I've taken down my x-quads. I haven't even tried with my verticals.

originally posted by: crazyewok
Just supply's for the ISS. Food, water, tools, monno propellant and personal letters mainly.

No not the personal letters

a reply to: Meduzi

Ah OK, I tried the day before yesterday just with the X30 and an RTL-SDR with TV# and got nothing, didn't expect to without at least a handheld yagi though which I don't have right now... :-/
Nice to see in the Amateur-DSN group quite a few guys managed to pick up the last transmissions from Messenger before it encountered Mercury's surface last night though!

a reply to: AgentSmith

If have you the HDD space, you could leave SDR# recording for a while, and take a look later. I would expect the X30 to pick up a signal but it may be too weak to get a sync lock on video.

a reply to: crazyewok

I imagine the first thing they expected us to notice was that the craft is not spinning out of control they are just spinning the camera. Notice this structure that is stable in reference to the Earths horizon in the released video?



My guess is that this was meant to be a history lesson for the Baikonur Cosmodrome which didn't "officially" exist before 1955. I kind of doubt any fresh "fruit" bound for the ISS would have survived.

originally posted by: Cauliflower
a reply to: crazyewok

I imagine the first thing they expected us to notice was that the craft is not spinning out of control they are just spinning the camera. Notice this structure that is stable in reference to the Earths horizon in the released video?

My guess is that this was meant to be a history lesson for the Baikonur Cosmodrome which didn't "officially" exist before 1955. I kind of doubt any fresh "fruit" bound for the ISS would have survived.

By structure I assume you mean the Progress spacecraft which the camera is attached to... Obviously the spacecraft is stationary in relation to its attached camera. Or have I misunderstood what you mean?

a reply to: AgentSmith

That V shaped structure emanating from the glowing reflection swings through several times just before the Earths horizon.

The camera may be mounted on a pod and appears to be just rotating around the axis of that pod.

1. The V shaped structure is not attached to the Earth
2. The V shaped structure does appear to connect at the glowing reflection of the pod skin.

Satellites usually spin in orbit anyways to provide things like thermal equalization.
If you want a camera to focus on the Earth it needs to counter that spin while it is photographing.

Why does the telemetry data look so old and faded at this point?