See the Shuttle and ISS again tonight, Wednesday, in Chicago

Last night was a fantastic pass--photos will be up in the next post. Tonight, see them again, this time starting at 9:52:07PM in the NW, reaching up about halfway to the zenith in the SW at 9:54:54PM, and entering the Earth's shadow a minute later.

Pass details from Heavens Above.

They look like a moving bright star--about as bright as Jupiter, which is low in the southeastern sky, but not quite as bright as Venus, which is in the west.

See the ISS and the Shuttle TONIGHT in Chicago

See the two race across the sky, TONIGHT, Tuesday night, starting at 9:31:27 at 10 degrees above the NW horizon, reaching 54 degrees above the horizon to the NNE at 9:24:12PM, entering the Earth's shadow at 9:36:24PM, 16 degrees above the horizon to the ESE.

Predictions from Heavens Above.

Shuttle launch on June 8th

The upcoming Shuttle mission starting on Friday evening is a big construction project on the ISS, to move and add a large solar array to the station. The ISS currently looks a little lopsided; here's an image from December 2006:



Here's an artist's rendition of the planned work; you can see the second pair of solar arrays added. They are removing the odd array on the top; one thing I couldn't tell from the press release was whether they are storing it up there and redeploying it at a later date or bringing it back; the full ISS would have eight solar panels on each side.



I picked this image up from the STS-117 Press Kit