In a message dated 7/23/0 Sun, 23 Jul 2000 10:16:39, "Jeff Hunt" <jeff_satobserve@worldnet.att.net> writes: >I thought I had missed Z somehow (predicted 08:22 UTC approx.) until it >showed up out of the shadow at 08:25:50 UTC well close to 4 minutes later >in a higher orbit based on the July 22 epoch from Heaven-Above. Z was >slightly brighter than ISS (IMO) and steady. > >The last posted maneuver for Z was late Friday July 21. Did anyone else >note a late arrival? I got out to see the same pass about 25 mile NW of Washington, perhaps sky conditions just a bit worse than Jeff's (limiting magnitude about 2, through the mottled haze and clouds). I timed the lunar passes of both the ISS and Zvesda to have been just about eight minutes, thirty seconds apart. I was prepared for Zvesda to be a bit later than predicted, but that additional three and a half minutes still came as a surprise, even knowing of the two maneuvers. But I'm glad it WAS late (and that I hung around as long as I did); a very dense cloud bank moved in over the area of sky they were passing through and it took almost the full 8.5 minutes to clear the Moon again. Had Zvesda been any earlier, I would not have seen it. By the way, I found Heavens-Above had updated its TLE for Zvesda about a half hour after the pass, and reloading their morning bright satellites page then produced predictions pretty much right on the nose -- about 8.5 minutes apart between them. Knowing there's one more maneuver before tomorrow morning's passes (which may well be clouded out from what I'm hearing), I suppose we can expect Zvesda to appear somewhat later than the four minute gap now predicted using the current H-A elements. A related question for the group: on the NASA HSF orbital elements page for Zvesda, http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/elements/ they have a TLE for epoch date 210. That should be AFTER docking. Does anyone know if that is a predicted station-keeping orbit in case docking fails? Jim Cook Germantown, MD 39.2N, 77.3W ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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