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The end of Iridium flares?

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Re: The end of Iridium flares?

#61

Post by owenversteeg »

Anyone know the Iridiums that have been deorbited? Or, more specifically, anyone know the status of 61, 10, 14, and 32? 32 is the most important to me as it'll be giving a bright flare near where I am soon...

[edit] and 84, my girlfriend and I will be staying in a dark spot where we should be able to see 84, hopefully it's still doing OK...

[edit 2] Decayed so far:

25, 72, 14 may

13, 29 april

94, 18 april

19, 7 april

Started to decay:

68, 10 may

21, 3 may

72, 27 april

25, 19 april

All decayed: 25, 72, 13, 94, 19, 23, 49, 43, 3, 34, 6, 8, 30, 77, 74.

It appears to take between two to four weeks for an Iridium satellite to decay from the start of the deorbiting process.

I got all my information from this excellent page here: http://www.rod.sladen.org.uk/iridium.htm

Re: The end of Iridium flares?

#62

Post by magduf »

basementcat wrote: post #25
donarb wrote: post #22

An interesting fact is why the name Iridium? When they were in the planning stages for this set of satellites, they estimated that they would need 77 of them to completely cover the Earth (including the poles), evoking an image of 77 electrons circling the nucleus of an atom. The atomic number for the element Iridium is 77. The number of satellites needed was paired down to 66, so the satellites should actually be na…

I pointed this out when I interviewed for a job at Iridium. I didn't get an offer.

Didn't that company end up going out of business and getting bought out for pennies on the dollar by another company which is the one operating it now?

You might have dodged a bullet there.

Re: The end of Iridium flares?

#63

Post by solarkraft »

John_KZ wrote: post #48
accnumnplus1 wrote: post #20

Oh no! I've loved watching them. This calls for a petition to leave one in place as a memorial.

Or, we can crowdfund a very large Mylar mirror. I'd pay at least $5 for this.

Humanity star was an attempt. We might be able to keep one in orbit for a few years. I doubt astronomers would be happy about it, however. But I'd also contribute money.

Re: The end of Iridium flares?

#64

Post by Justin_K »

basementcat wrote: post #25
donarb wrote: post #22

An interesting fact is why the name Iridium? When they were in the planning stages for this set of satellites, they estimated that they would need 77 of them to completely cover the Earth (including the poles), evoking an image of 77 electrons circling the nucleus of an atom. The atomic number for the element Iridium is 77. The number of satellites needed was paired down to 66, so the satellites should actually be na…

I pointed this out when I interviewed for a job at Iridium. I didn't get an offer.

Probably wouldn't want to work there if they couldn't take the joke!

Re: The end of Iridium flares?

#65

Post by cup-of-tea »

askvictor wrote: post #18
cup-of-tea wrote: post #5

I've been telling people for a while that this year might be their last chance to see an Iridium flare. Just today I had a predicted daytime flare but it did not show up. Seems like maybe the chance has already gone. You can still see other satellites and the ISS, but the Iridium flares were special. I'm glad I showed my wife a good one last year.

They might still be there for a while, just not predictable. Which might make them a bit more special.

Apparently they will all be taken down by the end of the year. It was posted on HN a while back. I'm not sure why this current article seems unaware of these plans.

Re: The end of Iridium flares?

#66

Post by watersb »

fapjacks wrote: post #34
kokey wrote: post #10

I used to have a cron job that ran a little perl script that screen scraped heavens-above once a day and then set up 'at' jobs to send me an SMS when a visible pass of the ISS or an Iridium flare was going to show up over me in the next 5 minutes. Was a great party trick at times and I got to see some great flares and also saw the ISS and a space shuttle a few miles from each other.

This is going to sound weird, but... One of the best nights of my life, I was on the beach at Bellows in the middle of the night with this Israeli chick the week after I got back from my last tour in Iraq. We were laying there in the sand, doing what people do on the beach at night and talking about the stars and the universe and smoking dope. I was just talking about the launch of one of the shuttles about half an h…

We caught that with binocualrs. Mind-blowing that we could clearly see the shape of the Shuttle and the ISS. Those are big things.

Re: The end of Iridium flares?

#67

Post by jcims »

LVB wrote: post #52
jcims wrote: post #37

Does the tracker actually model the directed reflections or just the relative angle of the viewer, the satellite and the sun and let chance take care of the rest?

IIRC it is a fairly precise model. They know which antennas, and the directed reflection. The width ground track is not all that wide, but if you're right in the middle of it they're very bright. Years ago I drove to be in the center of the path and could easily see the flare in broad daylight.

Thanks for the reply, that's pretty amazing!!!

Re: The end of Iridium flares?

#68

Post by askvictor »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #65
askvictor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might still be there for a while, just not predictable. Which might make them a bit more special.

Apparently they will all be taken down by the end of the year. It was posted on HN a while back. I'm not sure why this current article seems unaware of these plans.

According to Wikipedia there are a few in uncontrolled orbits, so they might be around for a while yet. As for the ones still under control, it looks like they'll drop 15-20km below their replacements as a contingency for a little while, before finally being de-orbited (I can't find any details on the timing for this)
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