Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!haven!umd5!cgs
From: cgs@umd5.umd.edu (Chris Sylvain)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Any orbital elements available?
Keywords: orbit elements space shuttle WA3NAN
Message-ID: <4107@umd5.umd.edu>
Date: 4 Oct 88 14:53:14 GMT
References: <2493@pixar.UUCP> <18800@cci632.UUCP> <6546@ut-emx.UUCP>
Reply-To: cgs@umd5.umd.edu (Chris Sylvain)
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 38

In article <6546@ut-emx.UUCP> poole@emx.utexas.edu (Steve Poole) writes:
>In article <18800@cci632.UUCP> fwb@cci632.UUCP (Fred Brunner) writes:
>>
>>I would be interested if anyone has software and a source of orbital elements
>>for visual satellite spotting.
>
>As for getting orbit elements, orbit elements are posted about
>once a week to sci.space, under the title of NASA Prediction
>Bulletins.  ...

Since this is sci.space.shuttle, I'm going to assume you're interested
in the elements for an orbiting shuttle, too..

WA3NAN at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD retransmits
the voice traffic between the shuttle and ground stations. They often
also read the latest Keplerian (sp?) elements for the orbiter (sometimes
as "old" as 15 minutes!) during the breaks in the voice traffic.

WA3NAN begins its day about an hour after the "wake-up" call to the orbiter
and continues through the astronaut's day to the "pre-sleep activity period".

Look (listen) for WA3NAN in February, following the DOD mission(s). There
are no voice traffic feeds to WA3NAN during DOD missions. During the last
mission WA3NAN was on: 3860 kHz, 7185 kHz (with intermittent dropouts the
second to last day [it got fixed]), 14295 kHz, and also 21.x MHz. The
14295 kHz signal seemed to gave good coverage even in Canada and to the West
Coast, although the interference during the weekend was very bad (apparently
intentional interference). Bad enough that I listened instead at 7185 kHz.

WA3NAN announced that the facilities will be much improved at their station
in time for the February mission, which among others, will include the use
of an IMAX camera. Listening to that ought to be almost as much fun as
watching the film ... almost.
-- 
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