karn (06/30/82)
The following is a set of Keplerian elements for STS-4 derived from
numbers obtained from the Johnson Space Flight Center:
Satellite: sts-4
Epoch time: Tue Jun 29 06:30:49 1982 EDT
82180.43807870
Inclination: 28.4038 deg
RA of node: 320.2049 deg
Eccentricity: 0.0008500
Arg of perigee: 54.5130 deg
Mean anomaly: 351.8915 deg
Mean motion: 15.89212148 rev/day
Semi major axis: 6682.63 km
Period: 90.61 min
Apogee: 313.38 km
Perigee: 302.01 km
An orbit model using these numbers is giving pretty good prediction
times for passes over the various NASA tracking stations.
As I mentioned in an earlier article, the low inclination results in
low maximum elevations as seen from most of the US. Here in northern
NJ, maximum elevations of about 6 degrees occur during passes in the
middle morning, e.g., 8:30AM EDT.
There are some visual passes for observers in the south, e.g, Florida.
If you are in the southern US and interested, send me your latitude,
longitude and height above sea level, and I'll run my program to see
if there are any visible passes at your location.
Phil