--- Patrick Wiggins <paw@trilobyte.net> wrote:
The ground track is now available at: http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/crew/landing.html
Patrick, Is this an usual landing approach pattern? The route appears to minimize transit over any populated landmasses. Looking at the general pattern of the orbital diagram for the ISS - << http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/tracking/ >> - and that, after the shuttle lands at 2:46am, the ISS passes over Utah at 5:46am on an west-east line angled from south to east-south-east - << http://spaceflight1.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/viewsighting.cgi?Salt...
- it almost looks the shuttle will decelerate on a high-angle southwest to northeast course over the south Pacific, then pull a 45° turn in order to reach the north-south approach landing track to shown on - << << http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/crew/landing.html
I'm not some conspiracy theorist; I'm a space enthusiast and am confident the shuttle descent will be without incident. I'm just curious about the route selection. Wouldn't it be easier to just land west-east, like Columbia did, or is NASA trying to limit flight time other populated landmasses? - Canopus56(Kurt) P.S. - If that was the intent; that's fine; it's NASA call. ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs