Space Shuttle and ISS Visible Overhead This Week

The Space Shuttle Discovery will undock from the International Space Station tonight (Tue 8/9/09) between the first and second sighting opportunity from the UK. It should therefore be possible to see them as separate objects, weather permitting, on each pass until Discovery lands in the first few minutes of Friday morning, providing 1 pass Tuesday, 2 passes Wednesday and 1 pass on Thursday - each one lasting between 2-5 minutes.

See http://esa.heavens-above.com/esa/iss_step1_3.asp?CountryID=UK to see what time they will pass your location. On Thurs they should be at their brightest and most visible.

I'm working nights tonight.Planning a skive for 10:45 BST. for a butchers at this. Excellent.

We spotted the ISS about 2 days before the last shuttle went up. However there was another vehicle in orbit a few hundred miles in front of it, which we actually thought was the shuttle until we checked heavens-above and found the launch had been scrubbed, so no idea what the other object was. ISS is pretty hard to miss. Heavens-above is also great for "irridium flares", satellites with enormous panels which catch the sun, and make a little one come out in the middle of the night sky, very pretty, very impressive, great for surprising folks if you know when one is due.

According to that site it's gonna be visible around Manchester at 21:44 ish. Gonna have a look.

If you've not seen it before, you're looking for an object brighter than venus, moving far too fast for a plane and far too slow for a meteor.

Oddly Mir looked a LOT bigger and brighter in her day, despite being a lot smaller.

I just saw it ten minutes ago.

To be honest, I am fond of aviation like Steve is crazy about Formule 1. I already saw the ISS last night without knowing it was it. Was wondering about the fact of extra land lights without any NAV ones and strobes + lack of sound...

Tank you Old Blue, I am not insane.

According to your link, another passage is scheduled at 22:45 today by here.

Typical, clear blue sky all day and then it decides to cloud over...

Jiphy wrote: To be honest, I am fond of aviation like Steve is crazy about Formule 1. I already saw the ISS last night without knowing it was it. Was wondering about the fact of extra land lights without any NAV ones and strobes + lack of sound...

Tank you Old Blue, I am not insane.

According to your link, another passage is scheduled at 22:45 today by here.

When I saw Mir it was much the same, I'd seen satellites before, but this was BRIGHT, exactly like being head-on in front of landing lights. But we were in a boat, and even if the speed hadn't proved it was no aircraft, the way it went over the horizon was just weird compared to anything I'd seen before. That site is brilliant if you tell it where you live, it predicts all sorts of interesting shit to see. AND it has a backwards lookup so you can work out what the fuck you just saw.

Sadly those of you in big cities are kinda fucked for anything less than the ISS and the brighter Iridium flares.

Ah bugger...too cloudy.Gonna try again tomorrow.Due over Salford at 8.35pm and 10.10pm.By which time it might stop for a kebab.

Can I just quickly point out that the title of this thread sounds like a Sigue Sigue Sputnik lyric. Thanks.

(It's far too cloudy round here to see anything, BTW. Which, of course, sounds like a Smiths lyric. Or a punter at a Fields of the Nephilim gig circa 1988.)

I briefly worked on a bid to manufacture the Iridium constellation - the customer basically wanted a production line churning out 50-odd spacecraft in 18 months.

We didn't get the contract, I think it went to Lockheed or Boeing.

I love to think about all the weird and wonderful things people I've met through New Order gigs do. It all adds to life's rich tapestry. I never imagined I'd know someone who helps build spaceships, for example. Even stranger, I certainly never thought I'd meet anyone who actually lived in Corby.

Actually, you probably need to fly a spaceship to end up there - like the aliens in "District 9".

Old Blue wrote: I briefly worked on a bid to manufacture the Iridium constellation - the customer basically wanted a production line churning out 50-odd spacecraft in 18 months.

We didn't get the contract, I think it went to Lockheed or Boeing.

The oddest thing about them is that they were launnched from Baikonaur (SP?) yet the US military use them for coms.

Also, I heard that when they first launched, they were angled so that each one would flare as it crossed the UK at the right time, because the flight engineer was a brit. They have since been re-alligned into a an orientation that is best for the solar panels efficiency rather than the amusment of ground staff, and therefor flare no more over the UK than anywhere else.

Doctor? wrote:

The oddest thing about them is that they were launnched from Baikonaur (SP?) yet the US military use them for coms.

That is for one reason alone, cost.

I'm lucky enough never to have had the 'pleasure' of being sent there.

Negotiating the embassy to get a visa is challenging enough. After that, Khazakair offer an extensive THREE flights a week from Moscow. The transfer from the airport takes 10hrs, and the coaches have extra large fuel tanks because Baikonur itself is so remote.

Once you get there, there are two hotels (one crap, the other totally crap), three shops, a bar and a petrol station, but at least the hookers knock on your hotel door to save you the bother of going out after dark.

Health and safety at the cosmodrome is bit iffy too. I've got a photo somewhere of a bored Russian technician filling a hydrazine tank, and he's removed the top half of his protective suit and is puffing away on a cigarette...

One of them astronauts is the uncle to one of my students... not that makes any difference in anyone's life here, but thought I could add a bit of nothing to the thread to keep it going

Old Blue wrote:

Doctor? wrote:

The oddest thing about them is that they were launnched from Baikonaur (SP?) yet the US military use them for coms.

That is for one reason alone, cost.

I'm lucky enough never to have had the 'pleasure' of being sent there.

Once you get there, there are two hotels (one crap, the other totally crap), three shops, a bar and a petrol station, but at least the hookers knock on your hotel door to save you the bother of going out after dark.

Not unlike Middlesbrough then.

It's too blinkered to say cloud cover ruined the bastard here. I discussed this event with a renowned captain of industry. His words were"It's the smog,forget about it gadge"

The Universe.Big, isn't it

johnny wrote: The Universe.Big, isn't it

Yeah. And cold. And full of infinite loneliness. Like Corby on a Tuesday night.

astronaut pee