A night or two ago I got a prediction for yet another launch vehicle
of a deep space mission. The second stage of the Delta that launched
the Stardust spacecraft to Comet Wild 2 is still in orbit:

Stardust Del r 7.0 2.4 0.0 5.0 d 13
1 25619U 99003B 04256.06021360 .00010258 -13725-5 51059-3 0 6539
2 25619 22.4547 219.6876 2864167 116.1774 275.9826 9.60815584188450

Here's a Boeing page about its launch:

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/...stardust0207.h
tm

So today there are at least six such interplanetary launch vehicles
still up the

19970 89-033C Magellan IUS
20299 89-084C Galileo IUS
20843 90-090C Ulysses IUS
25510 98-061C SEDSat Delta Rk (launched Deep Space 1 also)
25619 99-003B Stardust Delta Rk
28390 04-030B MESSENGER Delta Rk

Regarding seeing Iridium flares, an added challenge for those
who've seen them all (from the main mission antennas) could be
to get Rob Matson's Iridflar program and get predictions for
flares from the solar panels. That program also will predict
flares from reflected moonlight! A few people have reported
observing them. I believe the brightest they can be is about
+8 magnitude (maybe +7?), and they're brief.

Ed Cannon - - Austin, Texas, USA
(Remove "donotspam".)