Atlantis is up
11 Sep at 15:52 by Wilson
After still more delays, Atlantis finally went up on Saturday. Once more, pieces of foam dropped from the fuel tank during the lift-off and hit the shuttle, but the inspections performed by the astronauts yesterday show that everything looks good with the spacecraft.
Atlantis will dock with the ISS later tonight (6:46am EDT, 8:45pm AEST). They both (separately as well as when connected) are easily visible from the Earth if you happen to look up at the right place and the right time; the nice folks at Heavens Above can give you a nice table showing when they will be visible from your location, wherever it happens to be. For example, for Melbourne, they will be visible tomorrow morning, from 5:41 to 5:45, relatively low in the sky (31° at most) with magnitude -0.7. Wednesday next week (20 September) will bring a much better pass, going up to 75° 47° above the eastern southwestern horizon a bit after sunset (6:31 to 6:37pm 7:03 to 7:09pm), with magnitude -1.5 -0.3; should be one the brightest objects in the sky and easily visible even with a somewhat bright sky. (the predicted times and orientation changed, so I’ve updated the text)
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