Shenzou VII just passed overhead

[Priscilla_Anne]

I just went outside to watch the ISS pass over
and much to my surprise there was another quite bright
"satellite" passing overhead at the same time. There are not many that are bright to begin with, and not many seem to travel (EDIT: WEST to EAST as this one did. So many go North to South or South to North)

I looked it up at www.heavens-above.com
and found out it was the Chinese SHENZOU VII that was just launched yesterday. The astronauts aboard Shenzou VII will be making an EVA on Saturday. They are the third nation to conduct an EVA.

Following are a few quotations from:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-09/26/content_7060750.htm

The astronauts will orbit the Earth for three days, 68 hours, to be precise, and one of them will walk in space about 343 km above the Earth on Saturday.


That will make China the third country to conduct extra-vehicular activity (EVA) in space. The other two to have achieved that are the former Soviet Union and the US.




The timing of the spacewalk could, however, be changed, depending on how long it would take for the astronauts to adjust to all the factors. EVAs are essential for China's long-term goal of building a space station by 2020, and possibly launching a manned mission to the Moon.

President Hu Jintao, who was present at the Jiuquan launch center, congratulated the space scientists and the astronauts for the successful lift-off.
...
The spacewalk would be a milestone, he told them. "This will be a major step forward for our country's aerospace technology."

 

[ryan]

Nice, 50 years ago it was Sputnik... Coinicidence?

 

[MajorTom]

Priscilla Anne,

Good for you to have seen Shenzhou 7. I'm going to guess you saw the sun glinting off its solar panels. This particular craft has panels only on the service module, although previous Shenzhou missions had a second set, up on the Orbital module. (That set was removed from Shenzhou 7 to prevent the guy doing the EVA from getting fouled in it, apparently).

Be sure to check out the other Shenzhou 7 threads in the forum. Lots of videos and whatnot.

Cheers-
MT

 

[Priscilla_Anne]

Priscilla Anne,

Good for you to have seen Shenzhou 7. I'm going to guess you saw the sun glinting off its solar panels. This particular craft has panels only on the service module, although previous Shenzhou missions had a second set, up on the Orbital module. (That set was removed from Shenzhou 7 to prevent the guy doing the EVA from getting fouled in it, apparently).

Be sure to check out the other Shenzhou 7 threads in the forum. Lots of videos and whatnot.

Cheers-
MT

Yes it was fun to see. I noticed a thread about the Shenzou - after posting my siting - and read through some of it.

The ISSS is so very much brighter since the additional solar panels were added. It is especially pretty to watch as it goes into the earths shadow and all that copper gets increasingly red looking. Seeing that when the ISS happens to be entering the shadow slowly at an oblique angle is especially fun to watch in binoculars as the color changes over about a 20 second period of time.

I guess I was out of touch during the whole ATV docking with the ISS thing. Looks like I will be able to see the ATV in the next week a few times. On Oct 5th it looks as though it will be 20 seconds behind the ISS, even though the days before and after that it is 10 to 40 MINUTES earlier or later than the ISS.

What I have also missed seeing is the Shuttle docked to the ISS. Not for want of effort, but because of bad weather. Other times it has not passed over this area at the right time of dusk or dawn. I have seen them once after undocking, about 20 or 30 degrees apart in the sky, and that was fun, they looked like a couple of UFOs. But I want to see how bright it is when they are docked or see the two bright objects very close together. Not many Shuttle flights left to see this.

They say that even a small telescope reveals a little bit of solar panel detail on the ISS. I am trying to figure out how to tilt my telescope just the right amount and in the right direction so that I can pretty nearly follow the ISS by only swinging around one axis. I have it almost worked out number-wise but the mechanical aspect of setting up the scope that way is still a challenge. I have to think about it some more. Without doing that there is no chance of getting it in the scope for more than a 1/4 second and even to get that would be mostly by accident or luck.

 

[astrosammy]

I can't see it here because it has only a max. Altitude of 12° and a mag. of 4.7 here.
But I saw ISS disappearing in earth's shadow and ATV yesterday, also a (Iridium?)flare.

 

[Notebook]

I guess I was out of touch during the whole ATV docking with the ISS thing. Looks like I will be able to see the ATV in the next week a few times. On Oct 5th it looks as though it will be 20 seconds behind the ISS, even though the days before and after that it is 10 to 40 MINUTES earlier or later than the ISS.

.

I'm afraid you are going to be dissapointed re the ATV:-
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMPC26EJLF_index_0.html

Hard hats time in the Pacific, lets hope it dosen't do a Skylab.
You'll have to make the most of it while you can!

N.

 

[Belisarius]

What I have also missed seeing is the Shuttle docked to the ISS. Not for want of effort, but because of bad weather...

They say that even a small telescope reveals a little bit of solar panel detail on the ISS.

I've also had bad luck on ISS passes for the last few months. Clear skies and then - BAM! - it all clouds over just as the pass is coming over. I even got a new 'scope to see the structure... patience, patience (noise of grinding teeth)...

 

[Priscilla_Anne]

ISS and ATV viewing

I can't see it here because it has only a max. Altitude of 12° and a mag. of 4.7 here.
But I saw ISS disappearing in earth's shadow and ATV yesterday, also a (Iridium?)flare.

That 12 degree altitude should vary from week to week and even from day to day to some extent. There are times of the year when the orbit of the ISS favors the Northern Hemisphere and times when it cannot be viewed easily or high up in the sky at all for a few weeks.
Do you check the listing at www.heavens-above.com?
Registration is free and you can set up different locations if you are going to be travelling.

Right now the ISS passes up North of me, in the Evening sky, way in the Northern sky, going almost WNW to NNE. Near the Spring equinox it does that in the morning sky. I think it's LAN is somewhere around 70 or so degrees roughly (maybe!), so in February -March and then again around July - August it appears to be running South to North or North to South and much of it's orbit is running through the dawn / dusk portion of the sky all around the planet (more or less). I will admit I could be wrong about my understanding of this.

Heavens-above has an animated graphic showing where the ISS is over the globe at any moment (if you are loggged in). That graphic is what I used at different times of the year to try to understand it's orbit better.

I have attached an image showing the Heavens-above graphic during the Spring-Equinox. At that time the direction of the sun (straight up at mid-day) is the direction of the +X axis in orbiter). In the top left image, you can see that the ISS is crossing the Equator at around 10 or so degrees before the shadow line. The shadow line would be 90 degrees from the "Noon" direction. Noon line would be LAN = 0. Shadow line would be LAN = 90 degrees. At least that is my understanding of it.

Around the solstices, about a month before each, May and November, I think it doesn't pass through the dawn or dusk region of the sky much, and most of it's orbit passes over mid-day and mid-night portions of the Earth except at it's furthest North and furthest South excursions of it's orbit when it has to pass from light to dark or dark to light - but does so quickly and the tilt of the Earth's axis makes that happen far in the Northern sky (like over Seattle, Montreal...) in May, and far in the Southern sky in November. Again my understanding might have some errors in it, but as I think about the orbit that is what I see. I can't actually remember what time of year it was (a few years ago) when I could not see it for a few weeks at all, but I think it was late Fall or later. So November seems consistant with that.

I'm afraid you are going to be dissapointed re the ATV:-
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMPC26EJLF_index_0.html

Hard hats time in the Pacific, lets hope it dosen't do a Skylab.
You'll have to make the most of it while you can!

N.

Yes I saw that article, but I'm not clear exactly when the "3-week solo flight" of the ATV began. I think it might have been early in September, so it might not burn up until a week or two in October. (???) Not at all sure about that. I notice that the heavens-above schedule lists it as if it will go on forever. I guess they have not used information about the de-orbit and burn-up.

I've also had bad luck on ISS passes for the last few months. Clear skies and then - BAM! - it all clouds over just as the pass is coming over. I even got a new 'scope to see the structure... patience, patience (noise of grinding teeth)...

Yes it should be real fun to get a glimpse, ANY kind of glimpse of some shape to the thing. They have posted some amateur pictures at www.spaceweather.com now and then. I hope I can manage to see it. I am thinking it might be worth buying a lower power eyepiece to get a larger field of view and brighter image.

Gotta get going here - friends await me at the coffee shop!

 

[Moonwalker]

I sadly can't see Shenzhou from my hometown. But this evening I was able to see the ISS "once again"

This thing is so damn bright in the night sky. This evening I was also able to see the ATV almost 15 minutes after the ISS crossed my hometown.

But almost the same time when the ATV crossed my hometown from west to east I saw another object which seemed to cross the path of the ATV but from south to north. Does anybody know about that? It wasn't as bright as the ATV. But it was also not an airplane because it was too bright (no strobes, nothing, just bright and fast) and the sky was too dark at that time anyway.

 

[Notebook]

To Priscilla_Anne.

The ESA link is unfortunately accurate, the ATV will re-enter some time on Monday, a shame for a unique vehicle that perfomed flawlesly. Luckily there's another one going up next year!

Besides the link to the blog from the ESA link, this .pdf file shows what may? happen during the re-entry

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/ATV/infokit/english/Complete_Infokit_ATVreentry.pdf

3Mb I'm afraid.
Here's a quick precis:-

On 29 September the ATV will be put into a planned
destructive trajectory into Earth’s atmosphere where
it will break up and any remaining fragments will fall
into an unpopulated area over the South Pacific
Ocean. Deorbiting has to take many issues into
account. These include having the deorbit boosts
last less than 30 mins and the altitude during the
intermediate orbits not being below 200 km so as to
not degrade the solar arrays.
Prior to reentry, maritime and air traffic authorities
are provided with trajectory details to warn maritime
and air traffic about reentry time and area and
recommend avoiding this area during ATV reentry.
The ATV will perform two deorbit burns to reenter
the atmosphere. At least two orbits before the ATV
starts its first deorbit burn the ATV Control Centre
team analyse the ATV’s current orbital profile and
calculate the first deorbit manoeuvre to take place.
This is uploaded to the ATV. One orbit after arriving
at the point where deorbit rentry procedures start,
1725km behind the ISS and at an altitude around
330 km (20-25 km below the ISS), the ATV targets
the ground track for reentry. A first thruster firing
currently planned at 10:10 GMT and lasting 6
minutes reduces the ATV’s velocity by almost 30
m/s. This makes the ATVs near circular orbit more
elliptical, reducing the lower orbiting altitude by​

almost 100 km to 220km (The higher altitude