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Solar Array Flare Spotted!

ZS6TW – May 9, 2007 – 19:43

Hi,

This evening whilst watching the ISS passing over South Africa from 16:58 UTC, visability brightness
at familiar normal level - until suddenly at 17:00 UTC a brilliant flash lasting about 1-2 seconds. WOW!
I guess at least -10m.

Calculations show, at the time this occured:
Azimuth to ISS very close to Azimuth to Sun.
Elevation to ISS very close to -Elevation to Sun (From my location).

If someone wants to run the math, my grid is KG44BD.

Has anybody else seen this?

Is it possible to run predictions when to watch out for this - would of course depend on ISS attitude and
orientation of the arrays.

73s

Keith
ZS6TW

Observing ISS
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ISS attitude and solar arrays

N5VHO – May 9, 2007 – 20:33

The ISS attitude is much more stable now that the outboard array has been put on. The solar array moves to track the Sun so it will be constantly changing orientation but doing so consistantly. With the addition of another array on the other side duuring STS-117, the reflective surface should be even greater.

Kenneth - N5VHO
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/reference/radio/
http://www.clarc.org/jprod/component/option,com_weblinks/catid,14/Itemid,23/

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