re: STS-74, anticipated appearance
Walter Nissen (dk058@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Mon, 13 Nov 1995 07:46:30 -0500
When I wrote:
> Also, previous experience and energy requirements suggest that the shuttle
> orbiter will chase Mir from a lower and faster orbit. Thus, prior to the
> docking, Atlantis will appear behind Mir. After undocking, it will again
> return to a lower and faster orbit, thus appearing ahead of Mir.
I summarized the entire STS-74 mission. A comment from Neil Clifford
suggests that a bit of detail be filled in. My source is the now obsolete
flight plan available from http://shuttle.nasa.gov. About 2 hours prior
to docking, now apparently scheduled for 951115 0628 UT, Atlantis will
arrive at a point a few hundred meters below Mir and will make an r-bar
approach, i.e., along the radius vector to the Earth. Atlantis will leave
the vicinity of Mir about 2 hours after undocking, and meanwhile will make
two fly-arounds of Mir. These maneuvers might be visible from limited
areas on the Earth's surface.
I picked up these TLEs:
STS-74 Predicted Atlantis Post NC-1 valid until 951114 0000 UT
1 99974U 95316.70687524 .00083907 00000-0 10188-3 0 9045
2 99974 51.6473 134.0929 0026004 353.0894 6.9912 15.83901435 48
STS-74 Mir (note cat#) valid until 951116 0000 UT
1 16609U 86017A 95315.33685943 .00005096 00000-0 72085-4 0 9051
2 16609 51.6442 140.6949 0003055 316.9830 43.1086 15.57967912555898
but, frankly, I would tend to prefer the Mir elset in my previous message
for many purposes. The NC-2 burn is now apparently scheduled for
951113 1609 UT.
Cheers.
Walter Nissen 216-243-4980 dk058@cleveland.freenet.edu
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