Last updated: 6 February 2006
|
|
Last updated: 6 February 2006 |
|
Subject: chase SuitSat with your Autostar... Sent: Saturday, February 4, 2006 13:29:52 From: richard seymour (rseymour@wolfenet.com) Mark B. of the LX200gps yahoo group posted a note about the Russian 'lauch' of SuitSat from the Space Station. It's a Russian space suit that was released into space from the ISS. It had a transmitter that was supposed to transmit a signal for amateur radio folks to receive, but it apparently died. Here's more info: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/02/04/bc.spacestation.ap/index.html It's running about magnitude 3.5, so perhaps all isn't lost and the amateur telescope community can gain from the amateur radio folks' loss by catching an image of it. They stuffed the suit with trash so it looks eerily like a free-floating astronaut. Now THAT would be a sight to see (although I'm sure no scope could resolve it that clearly)! I was, unfortunately, not too surprised that none of the articles, including all of the sub-links i chased on the NASA site, gave the "offical" designator of the Suit. But Celestrak ( www.celestrak.com ) came through, (current, recent launches) and the TLE's are: SUITSAT 1 28933U 05035C 06035.17648092 .00150877 00000-0 98827-3 0 2 28933 51.6460 151.5234 0008831 241.8711 118.1817 15.74747302 So you can plug those into the Autostar, and your scope will predict and track the suitillite for you... Since the suit is light, low and fairly draggy, the TLEs will need to be refreshed fairly frequently, since the Autostar's math doesn't take the drag factor into account. (those TLEs are from 1pm PST Sat 4 Feb) have fun --dick p.s. how to "plug them in": http://www.weasner.com/etx/autostar/as_iss.html <-- short http://www.weasner.com/etx/autostar/as_satellite.html <---long
Return to the top of this page.
Go back to the Alerts Page.
Go back to my LXD55 Home Page.