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How To Spot A Huge Space Cargo Ship In Night Sky This Week
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This still from a video by skywatcher Marco Langbroek shows the European Space Agency's space cargo ship ATV-3 as it passed over Leiden in the Netherlands on March 23, 2012. CREDIT: Marco Langbroek (sattrackcam.blogspot.com) |
Skywatchers around the world have two more chances to spot a huge robotic cargo ship that is currently orbiting Earth, but time is running out. By Wednesday (March 28), the spacecraft will arrive at the International Space Station, and both spacecraft may be visible together just before docking, weather permitting.
The giant space delivery truck is the Automated Transfer Vehicle 3 (ATV-3), a massive unmanned freighter carrying nearly 7 tons of cargo for astronauts on the space station. It launched into orbit last week on a mission for its builder, the European Space Agency.
Over the next two days (March 26 and 27), the big cargo ship can be spotted by skywatchers in parts of the world that have clear night skies as the massive spacecraft flies high overhead. Some observers have already snapped photos and video of the ATV-3, which ESA has named "Edoardo Almadi" in honor of a late Italian physicist.
"Under the right conditions the ATV-3 can become quite bright," skywatcher Marco Langbroek of Leiden in the Netherlands told SPACE.com in an email. "Visibility strongly depends on the illumination angle … Twilight is the best period to observe it, as it will have a long illuminated trajectory."
