From: thomsona@netcom.com (Allen Thomson)
Newsgroups: sci.space.science
Subject: Re: Suppose they dropped an ISS wrench?
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 15:11:30 GMT

In article <368b1111.124121327@news.itol.com> d_welle@i_t_ol.com writes:
>On Tue, 29 Dec 1998 00:30:12 GMT, thomsona@netcom.com (Allen Thomson)
>wrote:

[snip]

>
>>(With one or two quite interesting exceptions, such
>>as my pet satellite, Cosmos 1833.)
>
>I'm not familiar with this.  Was it provided with enough propellant to
>keep boosting itself for a few decades?

No, it's in a 14-order resonance that lets it steal energy and
angular momentum from the earth. It displays months-long periods
in which it slowly gains altitude, followed by similar periods
of decay. The net effect is that it hasn't decayed at all since launch
back in 1987. (The last time I looked, it was just about to start another
period of increasing altitude.)

If you're interested, there's a fairly complete archive of orbital
elements at http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/space/elements/17500/
Get the ones for NORAD 17589.