Central Florida Can ‘Spot the Station’ This Weekend

NASA photo ISS International Space Station STS 128 shuttle astronaut NASA image posted on AmericaSpace
If you are in Florida, you can see the International Space Station from Aug. 3 through Aug. 8. Photo Credit: NASA

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla — Ever wish you could see the International Space Station (ISS) as it travels overhead? For those folks in Central Florida, this weekend could be an excellent opportunity for you to do so! That is, as long as the temperamental Florida weather allows it.

Tomorrow, Saturday, Aug. 3 at 9:48 p.m. EDT, the ISS with its six-member Expedition crew will travel above the Sunshine State (260 miles above). According to a NASA-issued release, this is how the station will travel over Florida: “ … the station will approach from the southwest, and for about six minutes, it will be almost two-thirds of the way up in the sky as it moves to the north/northeast.”

The following day, at 5:58 a.m. EDT, the station will appear in the early-morning sky out of the northwest. It will be visible for approximately six minutes at a maximum elevation of 80 degrees as it moves to the southwest. Later that evening, at 8:59 p.m. EDT, the station will again be visible, this time coming out of the south/southwest to northeast. As with the morning viewing opportunity, it will be visible for about six minutes.

Fear not, there are also viewing opportunities Monday through Thursday this coming week also. As the station conducts its endless circles of the Earth, it becomes visible at different locations at different times. Usually, the ISS is visible just after sunset and just before dawn.

ISS will celebrate its 13th anniversary in terms of being continuously occupied come November. The station’s current residents include Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin of the Russian Federal Space Agency; Chris Cassidy and Karen Nyberg of NASA; and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency.

To find out where the best viewing opportunities are by Florida cities, click here: Sunshine State

To connect with NASA’s “Spot the Station” guide, click here: Spot the Station

 

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3 Comments

  1. Jason: Great heads up! We signed up on the NASA “Spot The Station” service some time ago, and it really is an exciting experience to see this bright light in the night streaking across the sky from horizon to horizon, knowing that some 240 miles above us there are humans who may be looking down at us as we look up at them. It brings it all “home”, and gives one a tremendous surge of pride (and hope). Each time it soars out of sight at the distant horizon with its brave, precious crew of some of our best and brightest, who could help but say, “God’s speed!”

  2. The International Space Station flew over Detroit early this morning, 03 August. Funny thing . . . they locked the doors, rolled up the windows, sped up, and looked straight ahead. With 450 tons of high quality materials soaring overheat, I’m surprised the scrappers didn’t try to bring it down with their 9mm’s (they’re usually not MIT or Cal Tech grads).

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