The Shenzhou 5 rocket body just passed nearly over Cheyenne a few minutes ago and I noted a few interesting differences from the usual satellite flyovers I have seen. One, it moved QUICKLY across the sky; obviously in an unusually low Earth orbit (wonder how long til reentry?). A more striking characteristic was that it varied quite a bit in brightness, going from nearly invisible to brief flashes of, I would estimate, about Mag -1.5. The flashing was most pronounced as it was moving east away from me toward the yet unrisen Sun. I thought rocket bodies were generally cylindrical and thus would not tend to demonstrate wide variations in brightness. :-k

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Are you talking about the orbital module? My understanding was that it supposed to stay up for months.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03zzo.html


I'm not sure--there's no caption--but I *think* this article possibly has a picture of the Shengzhou 5 orbital module.

I guess so. I got the heads-up on the pass from Heavens-Above, which simply called it "Shenzhou 5 rocket". I'm sure that what it was. Thanks for the info!

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"It's time to receive our missions from The Head."

Well, it couldn't be the rocket booster itself, because don't those always jettison right away and fall back down to Earth immediately? They did on all the moon launches I watched during the 60s. That was the reason always given for launching out over the Atlantic--so the booster stages wouldn't fall on people.

I think so. I guess the construct was the booster set the orbital module and the return vehicle into orbit, and after the planned orbits, the return vehicle disembarked from the orbital module and returned safely.

For such a relatively short mission, I wonder why an orbital module was needed to begin with?

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"It's time to receive our missions from The Head."

Perhaps it's the first stage in their spacestation. If Yang didn't use it, there doesn't seem to be any other reason for putting it there.

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Well, if you believe the paranoid tinfoil hat brigade, it's because they have "secret instruments" up there that are going to pinpoint targets for Chinese nukes, or some other such folderol.

Flashing usually indicates that the object is spinning or tumbling, and that the more reflective panels on it are catching the sunlight in your direction.

I see it will make another pass over my location about 6:25 A.M. this morning, so I'll look to see if it does the same thing. :roll:

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"It's time to receive our missions from The Head."