[sarex] Mir Re-enter March 23 06:20 utc

[M <wf1f@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mir Amateur Radio Status: March 22, 2001

Mir Reentry tonight

By Miles Mann WF1F,
MAREX-NA (Manned Amateur Radio Experiment, North American Division)

Mir:
Mir's Retirement date adjusted to March 23, approximately 0620 UTC.

The Russian Space Station Mir will be retired on March 23 around 0620
UTC.  The controllers in Moscow have been slowly lowering the orbit of
Mir from 250 miles (400 kilometers) down to approximately 130 miles (208
kilometers) above the earth's surface. When the Space station reached
150 miles ( 250 Kilometers), it was at the point of no return. The two
Progress rocket boosters will not be able to lift Mir back into orbit. 
When Mir reached the 133-mile (220-Kilometer) point early this week, the
controllers were then able to pick the final orbit and time.  Mir is
currently at  about 127 miles (240  kilometers) in altitude.  The
controllers at Russian Mission control are now preparing for the final
three engine firings which will send the 140 ton Space station into a
controlled dive. The first engine burn will take place around 00:30 UTC
and the second on the next orbit around 02:00 UTC, with the final burn
during the 05:00 UTC orbit over Asia.

The main parts of the Mir Station will dive into a specific 50 x 100
miles spot in the Pacific Ocean.  Some of the smaller lighter parts,
such as the solar panels will fragment into smaller pebble size chunks
and land over a wider area.

People living in Japan and New Zealand may be able to see the station as
it makes is last fiery decent.  Amateur Radio stations living along the
Pacific Rim, will be able to bounce radio signals off the Ion trail of
the Mir station and may be able to have a few minutes of "meteor bounce"
propagation.  In that trail of Ions will not only be tons of expensive
test equipment but it will also include several amateur radio projects,
including:

Icom 228h 2-meter transceiver (SAFEX project)
Icom 70cm Repeater (SAFEX II)
Kenwood TM-733 dual band transceiver (SAFEX project)
Kenwood TM-V7A dual band transceiver (Marex SSTV system)
Kantronics KPC-9612 TNC (Marex Email system)
PacCom TNC (MIREX project)
And the first joint project between MIREX/MAREX/SAREX/ARRL/AMSAT was the
DCI RF Filter project.


Mir Orbital Data:

Database Entry:   4		      
Object Number: 16609
NASA Designation:                      
Epoch Time, T0:  1  81.1597455     
03/21/01 22:50:02.01 est           
Epoch Rev, K0: 86313           
Mean Anomaly, M0: 156.18750°      
Mean Motion, N0: 16.21156079       
Inclination, I0:  51.63420°         
Eccentricity, E0: 0.00041390        
Arg Perigee, W0: 203.89450°        
R.A.A.N., O0: 255.38490°           
Beacon Frq, F1: 145.9850          
Decay, N1:  7.57530e-003    

Derived Values...
(Adjusted to Present Time)
Epoch was   0.4 days ago.
Satellite age is   5325 days.
Orbital Period:    88.808 minutes
Perigee Height:    212.8 km
Apogee Height:    218.3 km
Lat. of Apogee:  19.8°  +3.086°/day
Arg Perigee: 205.62865°  +4.107°/day
R.A.A.N.: 253.06071°  -5.504°/day

MIR                     
1 16609U 86017A   01081.15974550  .00757533  11879-4  34830-3 0  7708
2 16609  51.6342 255.3849 0004139 203.8945 156.1875 16.21156079863131

Daughter of Mir:

ISS (ZARYA)             
1 25544U 98067A   01081.21693648  .00031287  00000-0  37706-3 0  7871
2 25544  51.5698 167.1633 0008461 199.3076 267.2921 15.60464118133492

New MAREX Web pages:
Check out our future ISS Projects and a large list if Mir related links

www.marex-na.org

Copyright 2001 Miles Mann, All Rights Reserved.  This document may be
freely
distributed via the following means - Email (including listservers),
Usenet,
and World-Wide-Web.  It may not be reproduced for profit including, but
not
limited to, CD ROMs, books, and/or other commercial outlets without
prior
written consent from the author.

Until we meet again

DOSVIDANIYA Miles WF1F

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