Hi all, Today I gave myself a little lesson in orbital mechanics and tried to predict elsets for the upcoming STS-107 mission to be launched on Jan. 16. I wanted to know what would be the chances to observe this one from northern latitudes. To start my computation, I use the last elset from a very similar mission in October 1993, STS-58, a Spacelab mission with shuttle Columbia. Altitude and inclination are the same. Here it is that elset : STS 58 1 22869U 93065 A 93304.85420889 .00599256 +25000-5 +97131-3 00514 2 22869 039.0238 040.6542 0013225 082.2063 277.9203 16.02230130002100 I produced the following elsets good for orbit one for launch at each hour of the launch window, launch time appears beside STS-107 in line 0. Of course, these elsets may be off by many minutes, but I believe they are useful for determining visibility windows for a few days after launch. STS-107 15:00 UT 1 27650U 03003 A 03016.61810000 .00599256 +25000-5 +97131-3 00514 2 27650 039.0238 219.2520 0013225 082.2063 277.9203 16.02230130002100 STS-107 16:00 UT 1 27650U 03003 A 03016.65970000 .00599256 +25000-5 +97131-3 00514 2 27650 039.0238 234.2520 0013225 082.2063 277.9203 16.02230130002100 STS-107 17:00 UT 1 27650U 03003 A 03016.70140000 .00599256 +25000-5 +97131-3 00514 2 27650 039.0238 249.2520 0013225 082.2063 277.9203 16.02230130002100 STS-107 18:00 UT 1 27650U 03003 A 03016.74310000 .00599256 +25000-5 +97131-3 00514 2 27650 039.0238 264.2520 0013225 082.2063 277.9203 16.02230130002100 STS-107 19:00 UT 1 27650U 03003 A 03016.78470000 .00599256 +25000-5 +97131-3 00514 2 27650 039.0238 279.2520 0013225 082.2063 277.9203 16.02230130002100 From my location, this mission will be impossible to observe unless it launches at the end of the window. Even then, it will be visible low to the south only in the first days of the mission due to precession. Hope this could be of some help for everybody. Dan -- Daniel Deak representant, projet spatial Starshine L'Avenir, Quebec COSPAR site 1747 : 45.7275°N, 72.3526°W, 191 m., UTC-5:00 Site en francais sur les satellites: French-language satellite web site : http://www.obsat.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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