From http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/station ... Soyuz launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome (about 45.4° N, 63.2° E), in Kazakhstan, at 3:19 UTC today (Monday) and will rendezvous with the ISS at 5:04 UTC Wednesday, representing a total transit time of 2985 minutes. At launch time, the ISS was near the bottom of its orbit, at about 51.16° S, 68.52° W (just off the coast of the southern tip of Argentina), so Soyuz is starting out offset by 1/2 an orbit from the ISS. Assuming that Soyuz will gain (or, less likely, lose) 1/2 an orbit relative to the ISS in 2985 minutes, then (using a figure of 92 minutes for the orbital period of the ISS), that's about 33 orbits to 32.5 orbits for the ISS, meaning that its orbital period is 1 part in 66 less than the ISS, or that it's gaining about 46 * 60 / 32.5 = 84.9 seconds on the ISS, for each orbit. Another way to state it is to say that Soyuz is starting out 180° out of phase with the ISS, and gains/loses about 5.5° per orbit of the ISS, or slightly less than 90° of phase per day. Assuming that OIG does post TLEs for Soyuz, what would its identifier be? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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