In a message dated 9/18/00 2:19:48 PM EDT, DeHBeaver0@aol.com writes: > Yes, the ISS was the LEADER! > > When the shuttle departs, the only way (think about it) for it to 'move > itself away' from ISS is by slowing down! thus, the Shuttle trailed. And yes, > > the Shuttle was the brighter of the two. Heavens-Above even says that the > ISS > mag was +.5, and the Shuttle was -1. -Ben I made the same mistake during a Mir docking mission in 1997. The shuttle should always lead after undocking and the fly around. Ref: http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Sep-1997/0455.html http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/Sep-1997/0456.html Thing work the opposite as you would expect in orbital dynamics. When you "speed up" or boost your orbit your ground track slows down because your orbit now has a larger circumference. Conversely when you "Slow down" you drop into a lower orbit and your ground track speeds up. Because Atlantis dropped into a lower orbit it will lead the ISS because the circumference of the orbit is now smaller. It's mean motion has increased by going into the lower orbit. Rather than using Heavens Above for relative position, try using Dave Ransom's STS Plus program (www.dransom.com) and use the most recent TLEs from OIG. It clearly shows that Atlantis leads the ISS. Q1 - Did anyone observe a water dump yet? Q2 - My Shuttle TLEs from the Spacelink e-mail list stopped arriving about 2-3 days ago. Anyone else suffer the same fate? Cheers Don Gardner 39.1799 N, 76.8406 W, 100m ASL http://hometown.aol.com/mir16609/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Sep 18 2000 - 11:41:49 PDT