I'd add that the water dumps are often visible after the actually dump has finished... the cloud of ice crystals can take several orbits to disperse. I saw an ISS water dump that preceded the ISS/shuttle by almost a full minute, that appeared as a dramatic 40-degree "comet" following the same path. Scott ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ted Molczan" <molczan@rogers.com> To: "SeeSat-L" <SeeSat-L@satobs.org> Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 3:40 PM Subject: STS 107 waste water dump schedule > Thanks to Glenn Talbert's post yesterday, I now understand that the start and end of waste water dumps are denoted in the flight > plans using the mostly opaque terms SIMO INIT and SIMO TERM. > > Here are the currently scheduled waste water dump periods for the remainder of STS 107: > > Date UTC > Jan 22 17:45 to 19:05 > Jan 26 02:40 to 04:10 > Jan 28 17:25 to 18:55 > Jan 31 04:35 to 05:40 > > A waste water dump is visible to the unaided eye as an illuminated plume extending from the shuttle, creating a surreal looking > comet. The water freezes into ice crystals which reflect sunlight, so the phenomenon is visible only when the plume is in sunlight, > and the observer in darkness. > > Please note that in the flight plan, the start and end times appear to fall within a 15 min range. This may have more to do with > having to providing sufficient space to print the words SIMO INIT and SIMO TERM. In any case, the above start times are the earliest > shown and the end times are the latest shown. > > A quick look at the above schedule and the shuttle's predicted ground track indicates that North American observers will not see any > of the dumps. > > On Jan 22 and 28, South Africa will have passes during water dumps, but both occur near sunset. The orbiter should be visible, but > the plume is likely to be too faint to be seen against the bright sky. > > On Jan 31, The Mediterranean should have a great view of the final water dump when the shuttle emerges from eclipse at about 05:08 > UTC. For example, Rome's pass will culminate about 40 deg in the south. > > Observers elsewhere on Earth should run predictions to determine whether or not they will have favourable passes during the above > periods. Always use the latest shuttle elements, in case it manoeuvres. Also, please be aware that the water dump schedule could > change. The schedules are available here: > > http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/timeline/index.html > > Ted Molczan > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' > in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org > http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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