Re: STS-123 EVA 3 Satobs

From: Jeff Umbarger (jumbarger2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Mar 19 2008 - 03:55:13 UTC

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    Hey Markus,
         I wonder where Rick was looking and when he saw
    the satellites. The vernal geosynchronous satellite
    (geosat) flare season began in late February and will
    run through to mid-April. For most of us on Earth it
    only really lasts a week or so to see *visible*
    flaring geosats if we don't move from our latitude.
    But for those in orbits inclined like the ISS/Shuttle
    - they would have the entire season *and* almost every
    night side of every rev!
         I've asked several people at NASA JSC (which used
    to be one of my accounts) to find out how to *task*
    the "underworked" folks on those vehicles :). But no
    luck. 
         From the perspective of someone in orbit, you
    would suddenly see a line of geosats flare  in the
    nightime side of the sky - perhaps sequentially - from
    east to west and then they would all disappear again.
    The declination of these objects would decrease
    slightly as you go through an ascending node pass and
    increase slightly in declination as you would go
    through a descending pass. And there would be two
    separate groups of flaring geosats - those west of the
    earth's shadow (the first set to be seen flaring) and
    then those east of the earth's shadow. And you could
    easily see what would appear to be 5 to 10 flaring
    geosats in the few minutes you have to see this effect
    from an orbiting spacecraft. In a lot of ways, it
    would be an ideal place to observe this cool
    phenomena.
    
         Regards,
              Jeff Umbarger
              Plano, TX USA
    
    --- Markus Mehring <m.m@gmx.net> wrote:
    
    > 
    > Rick Linnehan reported seeing satellites during EVA
    > #3 - I must have
    > missed that, maybe the Flight Day Highlights replay
    > has it.
    > 
    > As Bill Harwood (*) writes:
    > 
    > >"I think I just maybe saw the Southern Cross... and
    > definitely a 
    > >satellite fly over," Linnehan said at one point.
    > "Three satellites.
    > >Wow!"
    > 
    > Wonder if that's "three satellites" as in "NOSS"...
    > 
    > 
    > (*)
    >
    http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/current.html
    > 
    >
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