(meteorobs) Shuttle re-entry as fireball reception experiment

[Marco Langbroek]

>   Hi.Thomas
>   The shuttle reenter will come in over the
>   Yucatan,going into a landing at the Cape.There will be
>   no more reenters of the U.S because of safety
>   concerns.
>   Regards
>   Thomas Dorman
>   Horizon City,Texas

I actually think, and this has also been noted by Stephan Szyman on the SeeSat 
list, that it is connected to the fact that it is a mission coming from the ISS 
and hence in an 51.6 degree orbital plane inclination. This makes an approach to 
the Cape over the US impossible. So, safety concerns yes, in the sense that out 
of safety concern other missions than to ISS would no longer be made. No 
deliberate plot to keep a Shuttle from entering over the US though.

Shuttle state vectors for planned trajectories can be found here:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/orbit/SHUTTLE/SVPOST.html

- Marco

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Dr Marco Langbroek
Dutch Meteor Society (DMS)

e-mail: meteorites at dmsweb.org
private website http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek
DMS website http://www.dmsweb.org
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