The Amateur Satellite Observers of Southeast Virginia

Supported and Encouraged by:

• SEVAnet, the Southeast Virginia regional free-net located on the campus of Christopher Newport University, Newport News Virginia. If you would, please take a moment to visit the SEVAnet Business Village to find products or services that you may find to your benefit.
• The Langley Exchange Activities Clubs of NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia.
• The Langley Speakers Bureau.

An Observed Transit of the Russian Space Station Mir

• 2004.02.02 - Over the past year I (and obviously many others) have experienced deep sadness concerning the loss of the shuttle Columbia and her crew. One of my best transit photographs ever was of Columbia (STS-73) on 29 October 1995. Perhaps now it is time to begin looking to the skies again and better days. I have been very busy since last March with activities of the local Civil Air Patrol Cadet Program as a deputy commander and frankly have not had much time to keep the ASOSV pages updated.

• 2004.02.02 - The predictions for the next visible evening ISS transits were posted.

• 2003.02.02 - It is with deep sadness that we recognize of the loss of the Columbia Crew. They represented the best in spirit that America and Israel had to offer. The conduct of their research was in the interest of bettering the existence of us all. They prepared themselves for the task and they were true to the very end.

  May God bless them and comfort their families.

Check the history list for earlier happenings.

Here is a list of links that are chronologically arranged to upcoming satellite observations for the southeast Virginia area. These predictions will have increasingly significant time and angular errors if you are located more than 60 miles away from Hampton Virginia. In that case, you might decide to take advantage of some excellent programming by Chris Peat at the Heavens Above home page to obtain timely and accurate transit predictions that are customized (by you) for your location.

Acronyom	Name	Incl. (deg)	Apo. x Per. (km)	Visible Transit
STS-97	Shuttle Endeavour	51.6	Boost Phase Launched 10:06:01 p.m.	2000.11.30 (Observed 10:13:27+ p.m.)
STS-98	Shuttle Atlantis	51.6	Boost Phase Launched 6:13 p.m.	(Observed 6:18:23+ p.m.)
STS-108	ISS/Endeavour	51.6	Boost Phase Observed Wed. Dec. 5 @ 5:23+ p.m. EST	2001.12.05+
HST	Hubble Space Telescope	28.5	581.9 x 576.7 (2002.04.30)	2002.05.06+
SEASAT 1	Ocean Studies Satellite	108	757.6 x 752.8 (2002.05.08)	2002.05.17+
UARS	Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite	56.9	565.6 x 556.3 (2002.04.30) 560.7 x 555.2 (2003.03.11)	2003.03.11+
ISS	International Space Station	51.6	392.1 x 385.5 (2003.01.22) 395.8 x 384.7 (2003.03.24) 373.5 x 363.1 (2004.02.02)	2004.02.05+

Active News and Information Sites

• The Spaceflight Now news site.
• Space Science News.
• Shuttle Status Reports from the Kennedy Space Center.
• Find out what's happening Today@NASA.
• The NASA Television home page for program schedules and news.
• The National Weather Service Forecast Office, Wakefield VA.
• The latest USA Radar image courtesy of Intellicast. Select your area of interest on the image map for a closeup.
• The latest Norfolk Surface Weather Forecast courtesy of Intellicast.
• The latest Norfolk Radar image courtesy of Intellicast.
• The Tropical Prediction Center of the National Hurricane Center.
• Space Weather.
• Today's Space Weather from the Space Environment Center.
• Jonathan's Space Report. A weekly synopsis of space activity.

Background Information

• The ASOSV Q&A page.
• A Bibliography List.

Satellite Orbit Modeling Tools

If you would like to predict and plot satellite orbits, you will need:

• A satellite tracking program for your particular computing platform.
• A relatively recent data file of Keplerian terms describing the satellite orbit model. These files are known in the vernacular as two line elements files or "TLE's". These files can be found from several TLE Sources.
• Your ground location specific data. If you do not know your latitude and longitude, try the Tiger Mapbrowser and adjust it to your location.
• Network software for quickly setting your computer to reasonably exact time can be found by visiting the NIST Network Time Service of the NIST Time and Frequency Division.

Predictions for Notable Satellite Transits of the Southeast Virginia Area

The following links represent predictions for notable satellite transits of the southeastern Virginia area. The data has been generated specifically for the ground location of Langley Research Center, Hampton Virginia. If you live less than 60 miles away from Hampton, then for the most part the data is still reasonably accurate though a bit of mental interpolation may be necessary in the times and positions (normally only a few degrees or seconds). To help you interpet transit data here is a simplifed graphic example of how to interpret satellite transit prediction data for a Mir transit.

Notable Observations of Past Shuttle/Mir/ISS Missions

Here are a list of Shuttle transits which have been observed in eastern Virginia since October 1994.

• Endeavour (STS-68) October 1994.
• Atlantis (STS-66) November 1994 (photo).
• Mir/Discovery (STS-63) Near-rendezvous February 1995 (see select views of Mir above).
• Mir/Atlantis (STS-71) Rendezvous June-July 1995.
• Mir Transit October 16, 1995 (photo).
• Columbia (STS-73) October-November 1995 (photo).
• Mir/Atlantis (STS-74) Rendezvous November 1995.
• Endeavour (STS-77) May 1996.
• Columbia (STS-78) July 1996.
• Mir/Atlantis (STS-79) Rendezvous September 1996.
• Columbia (STS-80) December 1996.
• Atlantis (STS-81) boost phase for Mir Rendezvous January 1997 - Jim Conrad was recording Atlantis Communications during the ascent with his personal radio receiver.
• Mir/Atlantis (STS-84) Rendezvous May 1997.
• Mir/Atlantis (STS-86) Rendezvous September-October 1997.
• Mir/Endeavour (STS-89) Rendezvous January 1998.
• ISS/Discovery (STS-92) Rendezvous October 2000.

Here is a list of notable observations made from locations other than southeastern Virginia.

• Caldwell Texas, a text description of the Reentry of Shuttle Columbia (STS-93) 27 July 1999.
• Harleton Texas, a mpeg movie and still photos of the Reentry of Shuttle Discovery (STS-103) 27 December 1999.

Notable Satellites of Past Interest

This section contains references to previous earth orbiting satellites that were of notable achievement and interest.

• The Russian/CIS Space Station Mir .

Satellite Activity Pages Around the World

• Claudio Ariotti's SpaceOnLine.
• The Visual Satellite Observer's Home Page maintained by Neil Clifford, Jeff Hunt, and Bart De Pontieu. For worldwide observer's reports, consider subscribing to the SeeSat-L mailing list.
• Alan Pickup's SatEvo Page for those who like to observe earth satellites decaying from orbit.
• David H. Ransom's Software Home Pages.
• Orbitessera by Ken Ernandes.
• Brian Webb's Rawhide Space Page.
• Ben's Space Page by Ben Huset.
• Dr. T. S. Kelso's Celestrak WWW. This web page is an outgowth of the original Celestial BBS. Grouped types of two line elements files are available.
• SatPasses, Manfred Bester's predictions of notable satellite passes over selected US cities.
• AMSAT-NA, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (of North America) involving personal satellite communications via Amateur Radio with current news of Amateur Radio space activity. To read about SAREX communications reports, you might consider subscribing to the sarex@amsat.org mailing list. Detailed instructions for subscription may be obtained by consulting the AMSAT.ORG Mailing Lists to discover several types of Email news services.

Other Information Sources and Interesting Topics

• The Langley Research Center located in Hampton Virginia.
• The Wallops Flight Test Facility where aeronautical flight and sounding rocket testing conducted on Virginia's Eastern Shore.
• The CERES S'COOL Project.
• The Langley Office of Education Online.
• The Basics of Space Flight Learner's Workbook from the JPL.
• The Space Day home page from the Lockheed Martin Corporation.
• The NASA Langley Educators' Resource Center.
• The educator's resource NASA Spacelink.
• The excellent and timely links of the NASA Office of Human Spaceflight.
• The European Space Agency.
• The Johnson Space Center Amateur Radio Club Links.

Related Sites

The following sites are authored by the same person as this site.

• The NASA Langley Amateur Radio Club (NLARC) in Hampton, Virginia.
• The Amateur Radio Satellite Communications Station KE4ZXW located at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton, Virginia.
• The Newport News Composite Squadron Cadet Page of the Civil Air Patrol.

Utility and Searching Sites

• The Google Search Engine.
• The great local searching services provided by Greater Hampton Roads.
• The National Address Server.
• The Alta Vista search engine created by the Digital Equipment Corporation.

An important reminder about this page:

You are encouraged to ask questions, suggest changes, or report difficulties with the server or items offered. The author attempts a reasonable effort to ensure the accuracy and appropriateness of the posted information though omissions, errors or links which change to inappropriate topics not under the author's direct control may develop without the author's knowledge. Your acceptance, use, or the communication of information or software from the ASOSV home page for any reason is solely at your own risk. Links which feature commercial products for sale are provided on an "information only" basis and do not represent an endorsement of the products or sellers.

The ASOSV is a recreational science activity and is sponsored by the Langley Activities Association. Remember however, information provided by the ASOSV home page must not be confused with official NASA information which is available locally from the Langley Office of External Affairs at 757.864.6124.

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