titusouDo not believe we are seeing anything unusual it is what would be pretty much expected as Tiangong 1 interacts with the Earth tenuous upper Atmosphere causing more drag on the Space Station. With the significant increase in Solar activity over the last month would not be surprise to see this increase in decay become a little steeper. Even if it was losing 30 Kilometers a month you still are looking at a decay some where in the mid- January to mid February of 2018. We do have several high passes in the next few week will once again take a look to monitor for signs of the space station starting to tumble.RegardsThomas
Star OneLook at the graph you are looking at best a 6 Kilometer drop since the middle of August. We were projecting on a 30 Kilometer drop every month out to next year. We are still looking at a reentry time next year some where in the first three months 2018. One exception here to the prediction is if Tiangong 1 starts to tumble then we have a whole new ball game that is why we are doing as many observation of high passes of Tiangong 1 looking to see if it starts to go into a tumble! Also Solar active is going to have to kick into high gear over the next five month to change this drastically which we are now in a declining Solar cycle. Just because we see a little increase in Solar activity doesn't mean we will see this continue for five or six months down the road.RegardsThomas
When I presented my Tiangong 1 paper at the Sino-Russian Technical Forum of the British Interplanetary Society on May 21, 2016 I gave "rough estimate for decay: second quarter of 2018".
Quote from: Phillip Clark on 09/10/2017 09:35 amWhen I presented my Tiangong 1 paper at the Sino-Russian Technical Forum of the British Interplanetary Society on May 21, 2016 I gave "rough estimate for decay: second quarter of 2018".In my world the first question after that would be... FY or CY? ;pppBut seriously, do you see current behavior fit to your prediction?Titus