Observers at mid Northern and Southern hemisphere latitudes will have an excellent opportunity to observe STS 113 in close proximity to ISS after undocking on Monday 2002 Dec 02 UTC. Here are the scheduled times of the key events: Undocking 19:18 UTC Final Separation 21:02 UTC Separation will occur too late for European observers, but just in time for North American observers, who will have the closest proximity passes. For example, the Toronto pass will be SW to NE; the Shuttle will culminate 62 deg above the SE horizon at 22:30:18 UTC EST. ISS will trail by a mere 0.75 seconds (of time). Their greatest angular separation, which occurs at culmination, will be just 0.70 deg. This same pass will be visible throughout south-eastern Canada and north-eastern USA. Locations farther west will see later passes. In general, the best passes will occur between about 35 N and 50 N, but observable passes will occur well outside that range. I have not looked at the southern hemisphere in detail, but observers near 35 S appear to have good passes, though well after undocking, by which time the separation will have grown. Observers should make predictions for their locations using the following elements projected by NASA, which take into account the three planned ISS re-boosts (on 27 and 29 Nov and 01 Dec) and the shuttle's subsequent undocking and separation burn: ISS 1 25544U 98067A 02337.31247102 .00041100 00000-0 34010-3 0 9093 2 25544 51.6350 283.8097 0004408 208.6918 151.3994 15.56555664 10459 STS 113 1 27556U 02052A 02336.92724958 .00088000 00000-0 11500-3 0 9147 2 27556 51.6324 285.7343 0006482 224.0547 136.0091 15.57065145 1408 The projected elements are updated about once per day, and could change significantly, especially after the rendezvous and docking has been completed. Also, significant changes to the planned schedule could occur, if problems occur during the mission. I plan to post updates as the mission progresses. Projected elements for ISS and Shuttle are available here: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/orbit/ISS/SVPOST.html http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/orbit/SHUTTLE/SVPOST.html CBS News and Spaceflight Now publish the master flight plan: http://www.cbsnews.com/network/news/space/current.html#FLIGHTPLAN http://www.spaceflightnow.com/station/stage11a/fdf/113plan.html Best wishes, Ted ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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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