Well Deserved Thanks

Thanks Taft!!

Subject: [amsat-bb] Thanks Taft!!
From: "Bill Ress"
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 19:21:35 -0800
In-Reply-To: <8488E23095C0044597C202E07C74322B012CE203@ENPEFRML20.frontrange.afspc.ds.af.mil>
Taft,

I personally wish to thank you for your efforts, first in identifying what
likely is a late deployment of N-cube and then to provide us with the
delta-v data. Your comments about future ejection velocities will be well
noted on the AMSAT thread and we sincerely look forward to your future
updates and support.

I, like many others, will be continuing to listen for N-cube for possible
signs of life and to SSETI to see if the deployment causes a re-start.

Thanks again and Happy New Year - - - Bill N6GHz

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-AMSAT-BB@amsat.org [mailto:owner-AMSAT-BB@amsat.org]On
Behalf Of Devere, George T GS-14 AFSPC/XPYC
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2005 3:50 PM
To: Neil Melville; Ian Ashley; Radu Barza; Freddy Pranajaya;
missioncontrol@sseti.org; Amsat-bb; ncube@rocketrange.no;
STLee@calpoly.edu; operation@space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp;
g.shirville@btinternet.com; Yohko; nakasuka@space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp; Neil
Melville; graham@shirville.com; Marianne Vinje Tantillo
Cc: Randolph, Jason C GS-13 AFSPC/XPYC
Subject: [amsat-bb] RE: Update- New Object near SSETI


Neil- Been busy here- we have had a bunch of interesting launches in the
last few days!

Anyway, to answer your delta V question on the other Cubesats: As you
know, we had some difficulty in identifying the two other Cubesats in a
timely fashion as they moved away from SSETI. Because they moved away
fairly slowly, we have large tangle of data. By the time we were able
to discretely observe the two Cubesats, several days (almost a week) had
passed. When we propagate backwards over this time span, we do not have
good confidence in our results. We do get results, but I have very
little confidence that they are valid numbers so I will not pass them
along.

So, I do not believe that we can help with valid delta V numbers for the
other Cubesats. This does raise an interesting point for the future.
Perhaps there may be a way to eject these Cubesats with higher
velocities, so that they move away from the mothership more quickly.
This would greatly enhance our ability to discriminate them more
rapidly. I am not sure how best to communicate this type of information
to the Cubesat community, so would appreciate any thoughts in this
regard. Since anomalies can happen and the future Cubesat operators may
need to get information from us, it might be mutually beneficial to
investigate this further. Please let me know what you think.

Finally, note that the new object continues to decay very slowly, again
indicating it has some mass. Our radar data suggests it is probably in a
very slow rotation. We may never know if it is N-Cube, but I strongly
suspect that it is.

Happy New Year to all

Taft

_____________________
G. Taft DeVere, GS-14
HQ AFSPC/XPY
719-556-3708
DSN 834-3708

-----Original Message-----
From: Neil Melville [mailto:nmelville@freenet.co.uk]
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2005 2:50 PM
To: Devere, George T GS-14 AFSPC/XPYC; Neil Melville; Ian Ashley; Radu
Barza; Freddy Pranajaya; missioncontrol@sseti.org; Amsat-bb;
ncube@rocketrange.no; STLee@calpoly.edu;
operation@space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp; g.shirville@btinternet.com; Yohko;
nakasuka@space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp; Neil Melville; graham@shirville.com;
Marianne Vinje Tantillo
Cc: Randolph, Jason C GS-13 AFSPC/XPYC
Subject: RE: Update- New Object near SSETI

Hi Taft,

A happy new year to you too!

Thanks very much for that calculation. It is quite close the expected
deployment velcoity, which probably rules out the "shaken loose"
possibility - since we assume that this would be a lower delta-v.

This leaves us with an activation of the pod itself electrically (SSETI
Express trying to come back to life) or mechanically (the nylon wire
snapping). At least it narrows down our options! It certainly suggests
that the pod didn't open the first time around.

It would still be very interesting to know the other deployment
velocities to compare, if and when you have time.

Once again, many many thanks for all your hard work lately, I understand
you've been pretty busy, as well as it being the holiday period. It is
much appreciated.

Best regards,

Neil


-----Original Message-----
From: Devere, George T GS-14 AFSPC/XPYC
[mailto:Taft.Devere@PETERSON.af.mil]
Sent: 27 December 2005 17:27
To: Neil Melville; Ian Ashley; Radu Barza; Freddy Pranajaya;
missioncontrol@sseti.org; Amsat-bb; ncube@rocketrange.no;
STLee@calpoly.edu; operation@space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp;
g.shirville@btinternet.com; Yohko; nakasuka@space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp; Neil
Melville; graham@shirville.com; Marianne Vinje Tantillo
Cc: Randolph, Jason C GS-13 AFSPC/XPYC
Subject: RE: Update- New Object near SSETI

Happy New Year. We have calculated the initial delta V of the new
object away from SSETI and it was somewhere near 0.58 meters/sec. We
will get the historical data on the other Cubesat deployments and let
you know the delta-v for them shortly.

Taft

_____________________
G. Taft DeVere, GS-14
HQ AFSPC/XPY
719-556-3708
DSN 834-3708

-----Original Message-----
From: Neil Melville [mailto:nmelville@freenet.co.uk]
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 4:19 AM
To: Devere, George T GS-14 AFSPC/XPYC; Ian Ashley; Radu Barza; Freddy
Pranajaya; missioncontrol@sseti.org; Amsat-bb; ncube@rocketrange.no;
STLee@calpoly.edu; operation@space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp;
g.shirville@btinternet.com; Yohko; nakasuka@space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp; Neil
Melville; graham@shirville.com; Marianne Vinje Tantillo
Cc: Randolph, Jason C GS-13 AFSPC/XPYC
Subject: RE: Update- New Object near SSETI

Hi Taft,

One question: is there any way that you can derive the approximate
initial delta-v of the object from SSETI Express, and then compare it to
the other two Cubesat delta-v's? This would give us a very strong
indication at whether we ar elooking at a "shaken loose" scenario, or
an actual deployment.

We are working hard to listen for NCube and for SSETI, and appreciate
all your help - especially in this holiday period!

Many thanks and best regards,

Neil


-----Original Message-----
From: Devere, George T GS-14 AFSPC/XPYC
[mailto:Taft.Devere@PETERSON.af.mil]
Sent: 22 December 2005 22:46
To: Ian Ashley; Radu Barza; Freddy Pranajaya; missioncontrol@sseti.org;
Amsat-bb; ncube@rocketrange.no; STLee@calpoly.edu;
operation@space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp; g.shirville@btinternet.com; Yohko;
nakasuka@space.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp; Neil Melville; graham@shirville.com;
Marianne Vinje Tantillo
Cc: Randolph, Jason C GS-13 AFSPC/XPYC
Subject: Update- New Object near SSETI


Greetings- Although the element sets on the new object are readily
available on the Space-track.org website, I wanted to supply the latest
directly to you. We continue to track this object reliably with our
radars, and it is slowly moving away from SSETI. This leads us to the
conclusion that the object is not a lightweight piece of foil or Mylar
type material, since these decay more quickly. This is also reflected
in the very small Ndot term in the element set. So it seems likely to
us that this is likely an object with some mass, and our radars report
it is quite small.

Best wishes in your efforts to contact this object. We would be
interested if you make contact, so please let us know if you have
success.

Taft

1 28897U 05043H 05356.70226803 .00000182 00000-0 48118-4 0 58
2 28897 098.1779 252.6230 0017791 005.4499 354.6921 14.59489332 382
_____________________
G. Taft DeVere, GS-14
HQ AFSPC/XPY