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K5ARH > SAREX 17.07.97 04:55l 80 Lines 3820 Bytes #-10393 (0) @ AMSAT
BID : STS-94.025
Read: DC8MZ GUEST OE7FMI
Subj: STS-94 SAREX Bulletin 25
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Sent: 970716/2244z @:K5ARH.#LFT.LA.USA.NA #:49667 $:sts-94.025
Silver Spring, Maryland USA
Wednesday, July 16, 1997 @ 2100 UTC
Columbia Landing Info
With a healthy spacecraft around them, Columbia's seven crewmembers
began closing up shop in preparation for tomorrow's return home to the
Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with landing scheduled for 10:47 UTC,
weather permitting.
Early this morning, CDR Jim Halsell, PLT Susan Still and Flight Engineer
Mike Gernhardt put the orbiter's systems through a thorough checkout to
ensure their health and readiness to support entry and landing
activities that begin shortly before 06:00 UTC Thursday.
The flight control surfaces were tested using one of three hydraulic
units, or Auxiliary Power Units. All 44 thruster jets were fired and
found to be in good working order. Following communications checks
through east and west coast ground tracking stations, the crew started
stowing equipment that is no longer needed for on orbit operations.
Meanwhile, the payload crew that includes Payload Commander Janice Voss,
Mission Specialist Don Thomas and Payload Specialists Greg Linteris and
Roger Crouch squeezed in some final experiment work in the Spacelab
module and shutdown those experiments that have been completed.
The SAREX payload was scheduled to be stowed at 04:32 UTC this morning.
Columbia's ground track during landing will cross North America
traveling eastward into Florida.
For orbiter reentry plasma trail sighting opportunities, see
http://shuttle.nasa.gov/sts-94/orbit/orbiter/sighting/sighting.html#entry
During previous shuttle landings, Amateur Radio operators have attempted
terrestrial two-way communications by reflecting their VHF or UHF
signals off the orbiter plasma trail. Technical reports of any such
activity may be posted to the SAREX e-mail list at sarex@amsat.org.
Weather is expected to be favorable for both landing opportunities,
although the first still has a slight chance of some pre-dawn ground fog
developing that may not dissipate in time of the decision to land. As
the sun heats the atmosphere, the ground fog would dissipate rather
quickly presenting more favorable weather for the second which would be
at 12:22 UTC.
Although Goddard Amateur Radio Club president Robert DiRosario, KA3ZYX,
recently reported heat-related equipment problems with the space shuttle
retransmission effort, club station WA3NAN in Greenbelt plans to cover
the landing in full. Shortwave listeners may monitor 3.860 MHz, 7.185
MHz, 14.295 MHz and 21.395 MHz SSB, plus or minus 10 kHz. Those in the
greater Washington, D.C. area may listen to the same NASCOM audio from
WA3NAN in high-fidelity sound on 147.450 MHz FM simplex.
The GARC volunteer control operators encourage WA3NAN reception reports.
Listeners may submit a reception report via QSL card or through a special
web site set up by GARC curator Jim Blackwell, N3KWU, at
http://garc.gsfc.nasa.gov/www/signal_rep.html.
AT 198:09:47:00 UTC (JULY 17) COLUMBIA IS SCHEDULED TO PERFORM ITS
DEORBIT MANEUVER TO LAND AT KSC. IF THIS DEORBIT OPPORTUNITY IS
WAVED OFF, COLUMBIA HAS A SECOND DEORBIT OPPORTUNITY TO RETURN TO
KSC AT 198:11:22:00 UTC. IF COLUMBIA DOES NOT DEORBIT ON ANY OF ITS
AVAILABLE OPPORTUNITIES, A LARGE ORBIT ADJUST BURN WILL BE PERFORMED
AT 198:14:18:31 UTC (60 FEET/SECOND, RETROGRADE) TO LOWER COLUMBIA'S
PERIGEE ALTITUDE TO APPROXIMATELY 123 NAUTICAL MILES TO CONTROL
CONDITIONS FOR THE NEXT DAY LANDING OPPORTUNITIES TO KSC.
[Radio amateurs are encouraged to relay these SAREX bulletins to
their local packet BBS as long as the Bulletin IDentification (BID)
is preserved. The BID is the character string beginning with the
dollar sign ($), for example as in "SB SAREX @ AMSAT $STS-94.025"
without the quotation marks.]
Submitted by Pat Kilroy, WD8LAQ, for Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO, and the
SAREX Working Group.
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