RE: STS-88 Landings and launches

Philip Chien (kc4yer@amsat.org)
Tue, 1 Dec 1998 08:47:42 -0500 

jhunt@Radix.Net said:

>I'm betting, based on the present Zarya track close to scheduled
>landing time of Dec 15, 0408 UT, that the re-entry track will be close to
>that of STS-91, but maybe a little further west. Still re-entry interface
>over the South Pacific, Central America or southern Mexico, and the Gulf
>of Mexico.
>
>Naturally, all bets are off if STS-88 launch is delayed;-)

actually the launch time and even launch day have very little to do with
the entry path.  The direction will be identical, an ascending node (going
northeast) reentry over the Gulf of Mexico or Cuba towards Florida.

The key difference if there's any launch delay is the launch window which
moves forward by about 22 minutes.  So the sun angles and locations where
the shuttle and FGB will be visible will change.

The shuttle has six days when it can launch - December 3rd to 8th.  There's
plenty of excess cryogens used to generate power and water, so there are
quite a few different launch attempt/scub scenarios depending on what the
weather forecast is.  After December 8th the shuttle has to stand down to
wait for the Mars Climate Orbiter launch attempt on the 10th of December
(OBJ SeeSat on topic comment the Mars Climate Orbiter's second stage should
remain in Earth orbit and is therefore an object trackable by amateur
visual freuency satellite observers).  If the shuttle does delay until then
it's questionable whether or not the launch would occur then or wait until
the new year to avoid interfering with the Saturnalia holidays.


OBJ FGB visibility post.  After several cloudy days I saw "Babylon 1" on
Saturday Nov-28 morning on an ascending node pass in fairly clear but light
polluted skies.  It was a bit brighter than Arcturus and fairly steady.

BTW - I do hope everybody else starts calling space station "Babylon 1".
If enough people do maybe it will catch on.



Philip Chien, KC4YER
Earth News
world (in)famous writer, science fiction fan, ham radio operator,
all-around nice guy, etc.