On spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/elements I just saw that a small orbit maneuver is planned for the ISS on 15-MAR-06. What is interesting about this particular maneuver is that it will put the ISS right into the path of totality of the total eclipse of the sun on 29-MAR-06 (without this maneuver the ISS would miss totality by little over 4 minutes). The ISS can now expect to see about 23 seconds of totality at 11:00 UT (while over the coast of Southern Turkey). I don't know whether there are any ISS experiments which could use this eclipse scientifically but it sure will make the day for the astronauts on board and for NASA Public Relations on the ground! In the minutes leading up to this event some observers in Europe will be able to see a transit of the ISS in front of a partially eclipsed sun. With the upcoming phasing burn this would be (very roughly) along a line from Liverpool, North of London, North of Brussels, Frankfurt, South of Vienna, Istanbul. But expect this line to shift depending on the actual orbit. Accurate predictions will have to wait as usual until a day or two before the eclipse. I just wanted to give an advanced notice. Gerhard HOLTKAMP Darmstadt, Germany ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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