General Question Simulation to Real Life NASA Comparison

[PaulG]

STS-126 launched on Nov 15, 2008, 00:55 UTC for a mission to the ISS. But, when I plug that into Orbiter, the ground track of the ISS does not show the node at the launch position of the shuttle (florida). Why? Should it?

Not only that, but it shows the prograde direction of the ISS inclincation to be in a southernly direction, which I thought was an undesirable launch direction due to Cuba (from other posts).

Any ideas?

Thanks,Paul

 

[tblaxland]

I'd say that the state vectors of the ISS in your scenario file do not match the real life ones for that particular date. Download the real time scenarios that David413 uploaded to OrbitHangar for STS-126. You'll also want to turn on non-spherical gravity effects so that the node precesses at a proper rate.

 

[PaulG]

Thanks, I'll check it out.