March 27, 2009
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What a ride
The shuttle is undocked and getting ready for a March 28th landing. It performed an incredible 360 flyby around the space station before moving off to its earth bound trajectory. Landing is scheduled for 1:39 p.m. Saturday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a second opportunity one orbit later at 3:14 p.m.On March 30th at around 8:50pm Pacific Time, I will be able to look up and watch the ISS pass overhead traveling at 27,700 kilometres (17,210 mi) per hour and 350 km (190 nautical miles) above. With it's new solar array, the ISS is expected to be shine at magnitude -3.6. I've been a skywatcher since I was 10 years old and I've seen only two things ever shine anywhere near that expected brightness: Venus and the fireball that landed in Monterey Bay, California back in 1984(?). I can't wait to see what this looks like.
Today Expedition 19 launched from Khazakhstan in a Soyuz TMA-14 rocket with astronauts on board heading for the ISS.
The Kepler Space Telescope is now 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) from Earth and still receding. The final tests on its calibrations are finished and all systems check out. Take the lens cap off already!!
Comments (2)
Aren't you the lucky one? Here on the eastern half of the US, the best we can hope for is to see the satellites on a really clear night. What hit Monteray bay in 1984? I don't recall such an event...
@brokenbindings2 - Well apparently a very small meteor went into the bay, and the thing I saw flaring and smoking across the sky that went down below the horizon was that object. Actually I think it was 1983. Anyway, my parents said I was nuts and that I was just seeing things (I jumped up to the front of the RV we were driving to show them but by then it was gone). So the newspaper report the next day made me feel vindicated.
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