international space station

[bitsbits]

how often does the iss fly over the UK?

[Answerprancer]

It varies:
http://spaceflight.na...ingdom®ion=England

[argorstran]

The ISS does 15.7 orbits of the earth each day (wikipedia) . During that day the earth has completed 1 full rotation . The earth is divided into 24 time zones , so theoretically if the ISS was able to do 24 orbits each day it would appear in each time zone once . At 15.7 , the ISS is slightly slower than that so in the UK I am guessing it will pass over slightly less than once every day ( the UK being roughly 1 "time zone " wide ) . I hope that's right .

[wendilla]

The Iss can pass over the UK more than once it can pass over for a visible sighting then approx 45 mins later can pass again for a visible sighting but it can pass over a few more times but not always visible. If you look my posts on chatterbank I have been posting regular for the last 2 years when the sightings are over the UK. There are no visible sightings at the moment but if you check on Nasa tv Atlantis is on it's last flight to the station and you can watch it take off live this week. Also go to spaceweather .com and you will get up to date info .

[Ankou]

if it wasn't for wendilla, i'd never know when to look up.

[wendilla]

Space shuttle Atlantis is set to liftoff on the final flight of the shuttle program, STS-135, a 12-day mission to the International Space Station. Launch is currently targeted for July 8. Atlantis will carry a crew of four: Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, and Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim.

[wendilla]

thanks Ankou there are a lot of people that never knew they could view it without binoculars or telescopes. I am not very technical minded so I can just tell people the basics.

[bitsbits]

thanks chaps and chapesses. v interesting replies

[scowie]

I recommend signing-up on www.heavens-above.com. Input your exact location and it will tell you what times you can view a few satellites, including ISS. It's not visible at night currently (passing over in daytime atm). You may have to wait a couple of weeks now for its passes to coincide with midnight.

Also, I recommend installing Stellarium. It's a free planetarium app that can show you satellites and their orbits too.

[scowie]

http://stellarium.org/

[rov1100]

What amazes me is how the structure as big as a football field manages to cope with all the space debris around it?