Re: Mir/shuttle undocking
Alan Pickup (Mir16609@aol.com)
Sun, 7 Jun 1998 17:40:05 EDT
In a message dated 6/7/98 3:24:30 PM EDT, jhunt@Radix.Net writes:
> I'm not aware of the publishing of predicted elements for STS-91's
> separation burn. General rule-of-thumb is Discovery will go to a lower
> orbit, thus it will move ahead of Mir in the same orbital plane. By the
> time there is more than several minutes of separation there should be new
> elements issued.
For what it's worth:
Last September I observed the Shuttle leading the Mir by about 30 seconds (10
deg of azimuth) about 4 hours after undocking.
Weather permitting there will be 2 visible passes for me tomorrow:
A 13 deg el. pass at 21:19 EDT ((01:19 UT) and a 58 deg pass with a shadow
exit near beta-UMi at 22:55 EDT (02:55 UT). The times are based on predictios
for the Mir. I expast the Shuttle to lead by no more than 90 seconds for both
passes.
I observed the Mir/Shuttle complex twice last evening. There was a low
elevationa pass (11 deg) at 21:41 EDT (01:41 UT) at a +1 mag and a pass at
23:21 EDT (03:21 UT). at a 0 mag.
Cheers.
Don Gardner
Homepage: http://members.aol.com/mir16609/
76.8419 W, 39.1796 N, 34m ASL