Space Shuttle Atlantis Landing Live Thread (11/27/09 9:45 am est)

11/26/09 | Kevin Davis

[AGreatPer]

"Mach 3 not 30."

Thanks for the correction.

Beautiful bird.

[Red_Devil 232]

That is one beautiful shot of the shuttle!

[A.A. Cunningham]

Cool shot of the HUD.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Cool.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Yes it is.

[KevinDavis]

TOUCHDOWN!!!!

[A.A. Cunningham]

Touchdown

[SE Mom]

WOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Touchdown!

Safe at home:)

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Glad they are home safely.

[onedoug]

Onward!

Thanks so much.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Wheel stop

[tiredoflaundry]

Welcome home Atlantis! Gosh this never gets old!!

[markman46]

yes it was, best pic’s I’v seen

[KevinDavis]

Only 5 more flights.... Enjoy each flight folks... Enjoy them...

[A.A. Cunningham]

Bravo Zulu, Atlantis.

Thanks for the thread Kevin.

[AGreatPer]

The really put those wheels down at that last second. Didn't know that.

5 shuttle missions left.

[Ramius]

They had some great photography of the approach and landing. Maybe from chase planes? Some great shots.

[ETL]

Can you see both with the naked eye? The stars at night are big and bright but I don’t know what I’m looking at.

Yes, the International Space Station, especially, can be extremely bright at times, depending on how high above the horizon it appears (often much brighter than the brightest stars). It moves across the sky at the apparent rate of a high-flying airplane and appears as a bright white "star-like" object (no blinking or colored lights as with an airplane). In general, the higher it is above your local horizon, the brighter it appears.

Below are two separate "Ground Tracks" from two visible passes (~90 minutes apart) of the ISS and Shuttle from Wednesday, Nov 25th while the pair was close together in the sky. They are from the satellite tracking website Heavens-Above.com. For convenience, both are in Eastern Time.

Traveling at approximately 18,000 miles per hour/5 miles per second, ISS makes it once around the Earth every 90 mins. However, it usually is only visible from any given location once per evening for a period lasting several weeks. Each of the Ground Tracks is centered on specific locations I used in retrieving the data. There were earlier passes for the central and eastern parts of the country as well (not included here).

Source for the above Ground Tracks and precise International Space Station visible pass info from your local area: Heavens-Above.com:
(note that on HA.com, the International Space Station is abbreviated to "ISS"):
http://heavens-above.com/

For a much simpler visible pass schedule, where you only need to enter your local zip code, see:
(note that on this simpler schedule that only the highest [and brightest] passes are listed. HA lists ALL visible passes, even low on the horizon ones)
http://www.spaceweather.com/flybys/?PHPSESSID=397dsdousovks7si6boot44dh5&PHPSESSID=stlakv4povvhbcfakao2nm7sp3

Also, SpaceWeather.com for Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009:
http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=25&month=11&year=2009

And for additional info on viewing the ISS, see this thread I posted on Wednesday:
International Space Station and Shuttle visible this evening from many locations in U.S.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2394337/posts

[SE Mom]

Hard to believe, isn’t it? Five more. I’m going over for one - haven’t been for a couple of years. It’s still one of the most exciting moments ever!

[stylecouncilor]

It was magnificent!! What a picture perfect landing!