Hi everyone, the European Venus Express spacecraft is scheduled for launch with a Soyus/ Fregat rocket from Baikonur on 9-NOV-05 at 3:33 UTC. It will first be injected into a coasting orbit of 200 km altitude and 52 deg inclination. Then between 4:55 and 5:10 UTC the Fregat upper stage will be ingnited again to inject Venus Express into its hyperbolic escape trajectory. Unfortunately for SeeSatL the only time Venus Express could be observed visually under dark skies during its low orbit phase would be over the Sahara desert at about the time when the Fregat stage begins its second burn (and I wouldn't expect a big SeeSatL crowd out there). The next time Venus Express could be observed visually (at least in theory) is from about 9:00 UTC on out of New Zealand (and later from Australia). At that time it is already some 80000 km or so out and probably down to mag 17 or so. You would need an accurate state vector to find it (which I don't have at the moment). So unless you are in Baikonur for the launch we'll have to be content with watching the event on ESA television which will bring live coverage. Gerhard HOLTKAMP Darmstadt, Germany ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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