Ten years ago the Shuttle would reenter on descending passes after MIR dockings. A couple times it made large sonic booms here in Seattle although it was still 50mi high. I took a photo of one reentry, STs79 and it was in the Feb 1997 Sky and Telescope. The sonic booms from these reentries were single rather than the more familiar double booms close to landing and they didn't come until 5-10 minutes after it passed over, reverberating for half a minute. They only reenter on ascending passes now:( Dale > -----Original Message----- > From: George Olshevsky [mailto:george.olshevsky@gmail.com] > Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2007 7:15 PM > To: SeeSat-L; george.olshevsky@gmail.com > Subject: Shuttle Sonic Boom > > Around 12:30 PM Friday, as I was sitting at the computer > working on my latest indexing job, the house shook with two > strong, closely spaced slams a fraction of a second apart. > The dog started to bark and my wife, who had been napping on > the living room couch, sat bolt upright and asked, "What the > devil was that? Another earthquake?" I told her I thought it > might have been a passing truck, but frankly I didn't believe > it--the double bang was too loud and too sharp. I went out to > see whether anything had fallen against or onto the house, > but nothing was disturbed. I finally decided it was the > neighbor moving his garbage cans back nito his driveway. But > yesterday a local news report noted that STS-117, which > landed at Edwards AFB a few hundred miles north of San Diego, > had sent its re-entry sonic boom all across southern > California, startling the citizenry (I guess it came in from > the southwest). It's the first Shuttle sonic boom I've ever felt. > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------- > Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, > SeeSat-L archive: > http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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