I think they've committed to a southern approach as they've staged their airborne camera platform to Central America, according to Hale at a news conference Wednesday. bOb -----Original Message----- From: fenske@rgfpc.electro.swri.edu [mailto:fenske@rgfpc.electro.swri.edu] On Behalf Of rfenske@swri.org Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 7:58 AM To: Louis Carrier Cc: SeeSat-L@satobs.org Subject: Re: STS-114 reentry path The Shuttle's reentry path will always be roughly along a path that is the same inclination as it's mission orbit. For the landing there's two choices: coming in from the north or from the south. With the ISS orbital inclination of 51 deg. the reentry path will be more north/south than east/west. So it either has to come in over the central/east USA or over the Gulf of Mexico. They've used both for previos missions. I don't know if there's now a deliberate plan to only approach from the south, but a landing from the south is consistent with what's been done in the past. Columbia was the favored Shuttle for the lower inclination missions (including the HST servicing missions) because it takes less energy to reach the more equatorial orbits and it was the heaviest of the four. So when it reentered from the north its ground track would cover a broad of the USA, as it did during its last and fatal reentry (which I witnessed). On Fri, 5 Aug 2005, Louis Carrier wrote: > and looking at the orbital plane for those times, > it seems the orbiter won't fly over much of the USA > as did Columbia but mostly over water (unpopulated areas) > and shortly over Central America or Mexico. > > Am I right in saying so? > If yes, is it a new procedure consecutive to the > Columbia disater or is it a regular one? Robert Fenske, Jr. rfenske@swri.edu Sw |The Taming the C*sm*s series: Southwest Research Institute /R---\ | Signal Exploitation & Geolocation Div | I | |"The Martian canals were the San Antonio,Texas USA ph:210-522-3931 \----/ | Martians' last ditch effort." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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