Hello everyone, (all times in UTC) As it looks like Endeavour will finally get off the ground for the STS-127 mission, here are some visibility predictions. For our European friends, unfortunately they won't be able to see a pass of the shuttle with its jettisoned fuel tank because both will be in shadow at the time of their pass. It should cross northern France at 23:35 and shadow entry should be at around 23:31. I've corrected the TLE given by NASA for the coasting arc after MECO on its Shuttle Trajectory Data page and it should be something like this : STS-127 MECO 1 00127U 09037A 09193.97578703 .01000000 00000-0 70000-3 0 16 2 00127 51.6379 174.7098 0132826 348.8326 72.1224 16.48533989 10 For Europe, the first visible passes will be on Monday evening. The following elset should give good results for predicting local passes : STS-127 NC2 1 00127U 09194.71386507 .00020000 00000-0 70000-3 0 9048 2 00127 51.6380 170.7619 0046101 145.6919 214.7243 15.85847420 134 For North America, the launch will be in daylight. After the first orbit, it should be visible for the northeasternmost part the US and in Quebec and the maritime provinces in Canada. Predicted pass for Quebec is at 00:54. TLE to use is : STS-127 OMS-2 1 00127U 09194.02647889 .00020000 00000-0 70000-3 0 9023 2 00127 51.6379 174.4226 0055922 341.6503 18.2671 16.30239206 23 For the rest of the US, early evening passes will be visible and can be predicted using this TLE valid after 02:46 STS-127 NC1 1 00127U 09194.14991408 .00020000 00000-0 70000-3 0 9036 2 00127 51.6417 173.7444 0084750 161.5000 198.9289 15.95868349 41 For the southern hemisphere, there will be morning passes starting in New Zealand (Hi Robert!) at around 18:03 on July 13 (Tuesday morning in NZ). The NC2 elset shown above should be used. Happy observing ! Daniel Deak Webmestre, site Obsat COSPAR site 1748 : 45.8813°N, 72.5317°W, 90 m., UTC-5:00 Site en francais sur les satellites: French-language satellite web site : http://www.obsat.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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