Re: R: Space Shuttle Atlantis

From: Tony Beresford (starman@camtech.net.au)
Date: Fri May 19 2000 - 18:50:38 PDT

  • Next message: tlj18@juno.com: "Orbital Mechanics Question."

    At 09:12 20/05/00 , Olivier Staiger wrote:
    >When does Atlantis dock, and when does she undock ?
    >
    >According to heavens-above, I can see the ISS from Geneva as of May 25 each
    >morning. according to heavens-above I can also see Atlantis from Geneva
    >starting May 25 each morning, on similar path but not at same time. Does
    >this mean that on May 25 they will already be undocked again ? Landing is
    >May 29, so undocking May 25 seems early to me.
    Olivier & Ben,
    you are both forgetting that the elements for the shuttle Atlantis that
    heavens-above will be using in generating the predictions, are those of
    (one or other) of the temporary orbits its in prior to docking. So
    its pointless using them beyond 24 hours or less after the epoch.
    All one can do is use the ISS orbit for visibility predictions.
    An additional complication is that the ISS orbit is going to be
    boosted while attached to shuttle, so predictions for it,
    post May 23-24 are also meaningless. The details of these manouvers
    are available, but you need to use VEC2TLE and your own prediction
    programme ( or at least one in which you provide the elements)
    to make useful predictions. This is not a critism of heavens-above.com
    It wasnt built to handle the situation.
    Tony Beresford
    
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