Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Orbiter Landing Paths

The Atlantis is scheduled to land at 5:57am EDT tomorrow. Since it will be dark I thought I'd take a look at the ground track to see if it would be passing over Texas. Then I remembered that NASA now chooses re-entry paths which minimize overflying populated areas in case the shuttle breaks up during re-entry. It was just luck no one on the ground was injured by the Columbia disaster, and they are not keen to push their luck any further.

As a consequence, Atlantis will be approaching the Cape from the south, flying right up the East Coast. This assumes they land on orbit 170. If they have to wait until orbit 171, the orbiter will approach from the west in a more conventional way. The link has more details.

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