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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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