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Cosmos 1030
This image shows the trace of the COSMOS 1030 satellite.

It was launched on Sept. 6th 1978 into a highly elliptical orbit (e = 0.68).
Its perigee is 8 392 km and its apogee 44 700 km. At the moment of
the picture the satellite was 40 235 km away.
Its size is 4.2 m long, 1.6 m diameter, so quite small.

The satellite is now out of operation which explains the
flashes which are due to an uncontrolled rotation. The
lifetime of the orbit is estimated at 25 years, so it does
not have much time left.

When it was active it belonged to a group of Soviet early
warning satellites against an attack with intercontinental
ballistic missiles. The orbit is very peculiar. The satellite
spends a lot of time above the west coast of the Pacific,
probably because US nuclear missiles would have been launched
from this region or from Alaska. The orbital period is very
exactly 12 hours and the ground track does not change from
one orbit to the next. So the Russians kept the west of the
United States well under control.

The satellite was moving quite slowly because during the 11,2 sec
downloading time between the first and the second CCD image it
traveled about 100 arcseconds. Its angular speed was about 9 arcsec/sec.

The flashes have a period of 3,0 sec and they shine between 15 and
16 mag.

The satellite was moving from South to North.

I took the picture with a 40cm f/4 newtonian telescope and an Hisis CCD
camera on November 12th 1999 at 19:45 UT.

North is up, East is right. (Image is mirror reversed).

Mr. Bruno Tilgner contributed greatly in the identification of
the object. He gave also all the informations about it. Many thanks.
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File information
Filename:Cos1030.jpg
Album name:sposetti / Artificial Satellites
Rating (1 votes): (Details)
File Size:16 KB
Date added:Dec 06, 2005
Dimensions:138 x 414 pixels
Displayed:209 times
URL:http://aida.astroinfo.org/displayimage.php?pos=-399
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