(meteorobs) Fragmenting Fireball Over Texas and Louisiana February 27, 2013

[Marco Langbroek]

Op 27-2-2013 15:48, Alan Pickup schreef:
> I suspect that this fireball was the re-entry of the Chinese CZ-4B
> rocket that launched Yaogan 14 on May 10 last year. This has a NORAD
> catalog ID of 38259 and an international designation of 2012-021C. The
> latest TIP message on Spacetrack (issued at 12:16 UTC) suggests that
> this decayed just after crossing the equator northbound near 3degN
> 88.6degW on February 27 at 09:06 UTC (03:06 CST).
>
> If it survived a little longer in orbit, then the following ground-track
> should represent its motion northwards in the vicinity of Galveston:
>
> UTC        Latitude(degN) Longitude (degW)
> 09:08           24.7            92.8
> 09:09           28.8            93.7
> 09:10           32.9            94.6
> 09:11           37.0            95.6
> 09:12           41.1            96.8
>
> Regards,
> Alan Pickup
>

In that case I'd say that "magnitude -15" is likely somewhat overrated.

- Marco


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Dr Marco Langbroek  -  SatTrackCam Leiden, the Netherlands.

Station (b)log: http://sattrackcam.blogspot.com
Twitter: @Marco_Langbroek
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