Saturday 13 February 2016

Continuing to track NROL-45 (FIA Radar 4)

(click image to enlarge)

The image above shows FIA Radar 4 (2016-010A), the payload of the NROL-45 launch of 10 Feb 2016, crossing through Corona Borealis around 6:26 am local time  (5:26 UT) this morning (Feb 13) 3 days after launch.

It was about 6.5 seconds late on our very preliminary orbit. A new (hopefully) improved estimate of the orbit is here.

The SAR panels of the satellite do not seem to have deployed yet: the object is still relatively faint. This is normal: the panels are deployed a few days after the launch, based on patterns of earlier FIA Radar launches.

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