Metop Launch Scrub

From: Gerhard HOLTKAMP (grd.holtkamp@t-online.de)
Date: Wed Jul 19 2006 - 15:44:19 EDT

  • Next message: Tony Beresford: "July 19 obs from 8597"

    It's the kind of story we were accustomed to if it came to shuttle launches 
    but for Soyuz this is rather unusual.
    
    At 2 min 17 sec before scheduled liftoff (planned for 16:28:10 UTC, 19-JUL-06) 
    the countdown for Metop was stopped (I don't know the reason for it yet). 
    This has been the third launch attempt in as many days.
    
    I've heard different rumours about how this will continue. Apparently 
    consideration is given to try again before re-servicing Metop (which would 
    entail a delay of several weeks). It seems to be possible that they make the 
    next attempt on the upcoming weekend but even a launch tomorrow (20-JUL-06) 
    is not yet ruled out (I would find that rather unlikely though). I guess it 
    depends a lot on the exact cause of the latest scrub. There should be some 
    conference tomorrow morning (European Time) and then we may (or may not) 
    know. 
    
    I hope to have fresh orbit elements available in time before the next launch 
    attempt to post them here. (As a last resort you could take formerly posted 
    TLEs and simply change the Right Ascension by adding 0.985626 for each 
    additional day and change the epoch by changing the day of the year but 
    leaving the decimals the same. That works because the launch time remains 
    almost the same.)
    
    What a pitty, I really had been looking forward to observing Metop tonight and 
    the sky would have been just fine. 
    
    Gerhard HOLTKAMP
    Darmstadt, Germany
      
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive:  
    http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jul 19 2006 - 15:54:56 EDT