Scott Tilley 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 Profile picture
if (Coherence == Integrity) transmit(); else receive();

Sep 15, 2019, 6 tweets

#Chandrayaan2 orbiter Doppler data from last night and 4 day trend. This trend indicates the orbital plane was not quite perpendicular to Earth when I observed it last and that the plane of the orbit will be fully visible for the next couple of days.

Polar orbiting lunar satellites will twice a lunar day (~27 Earth days) present the full plane of the orbit to Earth and not pass behind the Moon. This plot of a full month of @LRO_NASA data demonstrates the phenomenon nicely.

After a review of data collected last night no signals observed from the #VikramLander.

The period of the orbit of #Chandrayaan2 orbiter appears to be trending a bit lower than earlier observations by myself and @df2mz. Edgar's observations of yesterday also appear to show this. Not sure if this is just an artifact of our methods or real.

@VK5EI also reported some observations where he felt something about the orbit had changed from his perspective. We await @df2mz's observations later today to assess further.

@df2mz and @VK5EI observations support a lower orbital period for #chandrayaan2 orbiter, this means the altitude may be lower.

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