The last ever flight of the Space Shuttle is now under way, and a few of its orbits over the next five days will take it over London. Sadly, during the daytime, so we wont get the exciting chance to watch a bright “star” flying overhead at night, but if you fancy standing outside during the daytime and giving it a farewell wave, the details for the next few days are below:

The shuttle is scheduled to return to Earth for the final time on July 20, although the flight tracking data only lists the next five days, so if later flypasts happen to go over London, I will add them below.

A flypast over London takes about 5 seconds and goes from West to East. From Monday, the flypast will include the International Space Station, which the Space Shuttle will be docked with.

Saturday 9th July – 2:49pm

Sunday 10th July – 2:19pm

Monday 11th July – 1:46pm

Tuesday 12th July – 1:10pm

Wednesday 13th July – 12:33pm

Wednesday 13th July – 2:04pm

All maps sourced from N2YO.

Worth noting that while this is the final flight of THE Space Shuttle, it isn’t the final flight of A Space Shuttle, as the US Air Force has its own smaller Space Shuttle, the X-37B which it occasionally launches for secret missions.

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2 comments
  1. M@ says:
    9 July 2011 at 1:09 pm

    Speaking pedantically, I’m pretty sure it’s not the final flight of THE space shuttle either. After she returns to Earth, Atlantis will remain in Florida, but her sister ships still need to be shipped to museums elsewhere. I could be wrong, but the most likely means of doing that will be atop those converted 747s. If so, the shuttle will fly again…just not under its own power or into space.

  2. Graham Tanner says:
    9 July 2011 at 2:48 pm

    Although it (th ISS) takes ‘about 5 seconds’ to overfly London, that’s only the portion of the orbit that its within the M25! It is visible (in the evening passes, or at night) for about 1-1.5 minutes as it climbs up from the western horizon, passes overhead, and drops down to the east.

    I’ve been watching the ISS (and STS) for the past few years, and I have seen them dozens of times.
    A few years ago I saw the STS pass overhead London about 20 minutes after its launch (as it did yesterday!), and there were two bright ‘stars’ close together – one was the STS and one was the fuel tank.

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