Possible Spotting of Cygnus Resupply Spacecraft to the ISS Saturday October 3rd

[petemn2004]

A Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station, launched at 8:16 p.m. last night.

The ISS should be making a favorable pass tonight (Saturday October 3rd) reaching a maximum altitude of 76 degrees above the horizon in the SSW at 8:22 PM.

ISS listing:
Date Brightness Start Highest point End Pass type
(mag) Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az.
03 Oct -3.7 20:18:39 10° WNW 20:22:02 76° SSW 20:22:53 46° SE visible

Cygnus spacecraft will be trailing the ISS. It is supposed to dock Monday morning with the ISS so it is hard to determine how many minutes it will be behind the ISS.

Clear Sky Chart shows a clearing process beginning around 6 PM.

Mark

[SEmert]

I'm going to try. Unfortunately right now it looks like it's going to be cloudy.

But one additional thing, I'm sure the amateur radio operators in the club already know but I just found out today, is that there is a newly installed ham radio repeater in the ISS. I just tried listening to the 3:30 daytime ISS pass with a VHF/UHF walkie-talkie and heard a few snippets of ham calls through it. So, something else to look forward to if it turns out cloudy!

[SEmert]

Partial success. I spotted a glimpse of the ISS through one little hole in the clouds, but didn't see the Cygnus resupply vehicle following it. On the radio repeater front, I only caught a couple of snippets of calls coming down from the repeater on the ISS. In addition to fewer clouds, I guess I also need a directional antenna (and probably a better radio).