Soyuz rocket reentry
ROB MATSON (ROBERT.D.MATSON@cpmx.saic.com)
20 Feb 1998 17:21:55 -0500
Hi All,
A quick update on the imminent reentry of the Soyuz rocket tonite.
Add about 45 seconds to all the times I posted yesterday. Reentry
is not likely to occur on the pass over Maine, nor the next rev over
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North
Carolina, Georgia and Florida. But the next rev has promise. This
track crosses into Montana from Canada at 23:28:30 MST (UTC-7),
and passes directly over the point where Idaho, Montana and
Wyoming meet at 23:29:45 MST. Colorado is entered at about
23:30:40, New Mexico at 23:31:50, Texas at 23:33:05, and Mexico
at 23:33:50. Perigee occurs over central Mexico around 23:35, and
the track crosses from Mexico into the Pacific Ocean at 23:37:10.
The track next makes landfall briefly over the tip of Chile and =
Argentina,
then crosses into the south Atlantic. Excluding a small bit of
Antarctica, landfall doesn't occur again until 00:27 MST (07:28 UTC)
in India.
The track continues northeast across India, Nepal, western China,
western Mongolia, central Siberia, a tiny stretch of the East Siberian
Sea, the Chukchi Sea, and finally Alaska at the town of Shishmaref
at 7:50 UTC. Anchorage is very close to the ground track around
7:52 UTC. Then it's back to the Pacific Ocean.
The California coast has a shot at seeing it very low in the west-
southwest, right around local midnight (from 11:58pm PST for northern =
California to 12:00:30 am for southern California).
Good luck all! --Rob