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#400 by MKremer on 20 Jun, 2007 02:54
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Nighttime Earth views. City lights currently, lots of lightning earlier.
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#401 by Ford Mustang on 20 Jun, 2007 02:55
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Here's 'proof' that Atlantis is ahead of the ISS:
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#402 by MKremer on 20 Jun, 2007 02:56
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Ford Mustang - 19/6/2007 9:54 PM
City lights from the Payload bay of Atlantis!
Must have been the Rio area, just passing the coast of Brazil.
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#403 by lcs on 20 Jun, 2007 02:57
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Yes, except that picture is totally incorrect as to the relative distance. They are almost on top of each other (10-20 miles), with Atlantis leading.
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#404 by Ford Mustang on 20 Jun, 2007 02:59
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I'm opting out on posting FD12 highlights, as we have the whole thread here. Just wanted to post the 'slate' coming up to the highlights, as this is the next major 'event' until crew wakeup and FD13.
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#405 by MKremer on 20 Jun, 2007 03:00
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FD 12 Highlights now on NASA TV.
(they'll be repeating this and the crew video throughout the night)
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#406 by stockman on 20 Jun, 2007 03:12
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I just had a quick look ahead. I was a bit wrong in my previous post. For the next two nights (from my perspective) around the 9:17 and 9:40 pm time frame EST. Each night there will be a good high azimuth pass lasting about 7 minutes.... Lets hope for clear skies the next two nights and maybe we will have another chance to see both Shuttle and Station following each other.
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#407 by TrueBlueWitt on 20 Jun, 2007 03:13
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If I can get this to work..
I took pictures of the Shuttle and ISS passing over Mid Michigan tonight about 10:34.Atlantis in Lower right leading? surprised it looks that much brigher than ISS .
Even my 15 and 13 year old kids were impressed.. now they want to go watch a shuttle launch!
http://home.comcast.net/~scottaoncable/Photos/shuttle_ISS_overflight_MI_22H33M_19JUN07.jpg" />
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#408 by Chris Bergin on 20 Jun, 2007 03:18
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Sort of thing that should go on the "Sightings" thread, but that's way too cool to move. Thanks for sharing!
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#409 by jmjawors on 20 Jun, 2007 03:18
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Your picture, Art, is what I saw too. So it makes sense that the trailing "star" is ISS due to the flash I saw (a known phenomenon), but...
Atlantis is brighter? I'm bamboozled by that too. -
#410 by Ford Mustang on 20 Jun, 2007 03:20
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Atlantis is 10-20 miles lower, if what I hear is correct, than the ISS, thus, brighter (bigger).
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#411 by MKremer on 20 Jun, 2007 03:22
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Atlantis has the upper 'white' side facing Earth, plus the silver radiators on the open PB doors.
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#412 by jmjawors on 20 Jun, 2007 03:23
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Ford Mustang - 19/6/2007 10:20 PM
Atlantis is 10-20 miles lower, if what I hear is correct, than the ISS, thus, brighter (bigger).
Ahh. Ok. Thanks, Steven... that makes sense. And thanks for your coverage today too! I had to miss the whole thing, so when I got back from work I got a great overview of the flight day. -
#413 by daveglo on 20 Jun, 2007 03:28
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Now that folks have pointed out that Atlantis is leading, I went back to Heavens-Above, and sure enough, it lists the ISS as having an apparent brightness of 0.9 at my location, and STS-117's brightness as 0.4. I'd have to say they hit it pretty close to right on.
Thanks to all for the clarification. I've got another brief viewing opportunity in 30 minutes, with both of them passing right next to a crecsent moon. Time to set up the camera! -
#414 by TrueBlueWitt on 20 Jun, 2007 03:29
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Chris Bergin - 19/6/2007 11:18 PM
Sort of thing that should go on the "Sightings" thread, but that's way too cool to move. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for letting me share! I'm happy I was able to contribute something back. I've enjoyed the discussions and info on this website immensely since finding it a few months back. Keep up the great work!
This was the first time I've sighted ISS and the Shuttle.. Seeing the sighting comments from everybody else the last few days really tweaked my interest. -
#415 by Ford Mustang on 20 Jun, 2007 03:37
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Caught a few more good snaps of Suni going in for the lifesaver water-ball thing:
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#416 by MKremer on 20 Jun, 2007 03:58
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They were all still really laughing mentioning the cabin heating control valve when talking with Capcom after the video.
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#417 by Jorge on 20 Jun, 2007 04:59
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j2_ - 19/6/2007 8:29 PM
QuoteChris Bergin - 19/6/2007 6:25 PM
Best one ever. Great info on orbiter flying. Explaining Vbar and Rbar. Ford's getting screenshots, but the video is required viewing (when John 44 publishes it). Loving this one.
I love all the PLT/CDR type info.
Hopefully MKirk or Jorge will give us some insight on some of the stuff CJ was talking about. Spec 21 ops, and reselecting jets in case of DPS failure!
Time to dig out the DPS manual and read up on what SPEC 21 is used for!
I didn't see the video the first time so had to wait until they started replaying it.
SPEC 21 - The normal Group B powerdown has the crew take IMU 2 to standby in order to conserve power. During the Group B powerup, prior to undocking, the crew recovers the IMU by sending the Operate command, then aligning IMU 2 to either IMU 1 or 3. This is all done with entries to SPEC 21, the IMU ALIGN display (it's actually not a DPS display...).
Reselecting jets - You may have noticed, looking at pictures of ISS, that the PV radiator on the P6 truss extends forward of PMA2. From the orbiter's perspective, the radiator hangs down in front of the nose, directly in the plume flowfield from the forward firing RCS jets. There are three such jets, and the Digital Autopilot (DAP) normally fires two of them at a time. This puts high plume loads on the radiator, because two RCS jets firing close together have overlapping flowfields that creates a "shock plane" where the fields intersect, greatly amplifying the dynamic pressure. To reduce loads during final approach and right after undocking, procedures call for the crew to deselect two of the three jets, to force the DAP to fire just one at a time. If that last jet were to fail, the orbiter would lose translation capability in that axis. In that event, the crew has trained to quickly reselect one of the other jets. There are other failures besides a straight jet failure that could cause that jet to become unavailable, such as DPS failures. So the crew must be primed to look for other signatures beyond just a jet fail message to determine that the jet is unavailable. This concern should go away after the P6 is relocated from Z1 to P5 on STS-120. -
#418 by Jorge on 20 Jun, 2007 05:01
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Ford Mustang - 19/6/2007 8:37 PM
Pic 1: During the Flyaround of the ISS, the green (solid) line is where they are, dotted is projected
It's hard to tell in that picture, but the RPOP predictors are not really a dotted line, but the numbers 1-9, signifying where the orbiter will be at one-minute intervals out to nine minutes. -
#419 by Jorge on 20 Jun, 2007 05:38
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lcs - 19/6/2007 9:51 PM
The shuttle should be leading the ISS, since it is in a lower and faster orbit.
Hmm, no.
The orbiter performed three burns to separate from ISS. SEP1 was a 1.5 fps radial up burn that put the orbiter above and behind ISS. SEP2 was a 1.0 fps posigrade burn that set the orbiter phasing further back behind ISS for Late Inspection (to protect possible re-rendezvous, which would be from behind). NC5, the last burn of the day, was another 1.0 fps posigrade burn that caused the orbiter to fall behind ISS faster. Atlantis' orbit is not much higher than ISS (about 1 nmi, but it is higher).
