Thanks Kevin and George! So the only thing left to determine is how high the vehicle will be along the ascent trajectory parallel to the Atlantic Seaboard. It would seem, however, that it will be somewhat similar to the altitude of the Shuttle missions to the ISS, although recall that unlike the Cygnus CRS Orb-4, the Shuttle's injection into orbit was not circular, but more lopsided with an apogee of something like 120 sm and a perigee of around 80 sm. Of course Cygnus CRS Orb-4 will be fainter than a Shuttle as well . . . with the Shuttle we were dealing with the orbiter main engines . . . in the upcoming case we only will have the Centaur to light the way. -- joe rao In a message dated 11/27/2015 10:22:34 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, websterling_at_gmail.com writes: I couldn't find an ascent profile, but I found this which contains a timeline and ground track- http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Mission_Booklets/AV/av_oa4_mob.pdf It shows Atlas BECO at 04:16, Centaur ignition at 04:32, and Centaur shutdown at 18:17. The initial orbit is 124x124nm. I live in SE Virginia and saw the shuttle several times when it launched on a similar trajectory. For me it rose out of the south about 4 minutes after launch heading towards the east. It reached and maintained an elevation of about 13 degrees as it headed towards the NE. MECO was visible. All of the launches I saw occurred after sunset- several just after, and a few at night. I never did see a daytime launch. On Thu, Nov 26, 2015 at 11:07 PM, Skywayinc--- via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org> wrote: In a message dated 11/26/2015 3:55:12 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, seesat-l_at_satobs.org writes: I don't see any reason, people couldn't spot the light coming from the upper stage. Only problem, I seem to see, is that the rocket will be low in altitude, so won't be high in elevation for people trying to see it. Kevin If anybody has any specifics regarding this flight, such as how long will the first stage burn . . . and how long after that the transition to the ignition of the Centaur . . . and how long that will last, that would help a lot. Keep in mind that during Shuttle launches MECO occurred about 400 miles southeast of NYC and at an altitude of 75 miles, placed the orbiter about 8 degrees above the SE horizon from the Tri-State NY area about 8 minutes after leaving Pad 39A at KSC. I've scourered the Internet looking for specific numbers or some sort of timeline regarding launch-to-orbit of this mission with little success. It might actually be more advantageous -- from a visibility standpoint -- to have the launch occur about an hour earlier, which would allow the vehicle to be illuminated by the Sun. A delay of 3 days -- from Thursday, Dec. 3 to Sunday, Dec. 6 -- would likely push a possible liftoff time back to just before 5 p.m. EST. -- joe rao _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-lReceived on Fri Nov 27 2015 - 09:56:20 UTC
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