Thanks to many of our sharp readers for this… this note is from Mike Wilson:
“Landing ground tracks for tomorrow’s Shuttle Landing should take it directly over Tuscaloosa and should be visable from Birmingham between 11:30 and Noon. Here is a link to confirm my statement.”
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts120/news/landing.html
Here is more info from another reader:
“James,
I’ve been looking at the ground track for the Shuttle landing tomorrow:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts120/news/landing.html
and it appears that the track will take it directly over the Birmingham area. You’ve probably got a better feel for this than I do since you look at images like this every day. J
I contacted someone this afternoon who used to work in Mission Control at JSC. He told me that it would be difficult to spot the Shuttle tomorrow because it will still be at a pretty high altitude when it passes through here (too bad it isn’t a night landing). He also said that there was a slight chance that we would hear the sonic boom from Shuttle about 5 minutes after it passes overhead, depending on how much ambient noise there is. Everything I’ve ever read about Shuttle operations said that the sonic booms are normally only heard over Florida.
Anyway, I’ll be standing around in the parking lot here at Moore-Handley tomorrow from 11:30 until slightly after Noon (if everything proceeds according to plan). Who knows – maybe I’ll hear/see something! I just wanted to pass all of this along to you in case you were interested.”
