The International Space Station will soon be visible above the HV
NASA recently announced that the International Space Station will be decommissioned in 2031 as the largest man-made object to fly in space will crash into the Pacific Ocean. It will be the end of a long journey for the spacecraft which began all the way back in 1998, and went into full operation on November 2, 2000. But in the meantime, the flight continues and soon the ISS will be again view in the sky of the Hudson Valley.
AccuWeather says the giant lab is currently 250 miles above Earth, traveling at 17,500 mph. The craft can be seen from Earth as a solid white dot moving across the sky without the flicker you would see from a regular commercial aircraft. Whether or not you see the space station depends on the orbit and the weather in your area.
NASA has a Spot the Space Station website, where you enter your location and see when the craft will be visible. if you are in Poughkeepsie you might want to get up very early in the morning. The next time you see it over the Hudson Valley will be Saturday, February 19 at 5:40 a.m. it will be visible for 4 minutes at a maximum height of 44 degrees. If you can’t see it on Saturday, there will be other times over the coming week to attend the ISS
Sunday at 5:40 a.m., Monday at 4:08 a.m. and 5:41 a.m. and Tuesday at 4:55 a.m.
Visibility and height will vary slightly depending on location within the area, but not much.
The space station, which is the length of a football field, is a collaboration between the United States, Canada, Russia, Japan and Europe. Wikipedia indicates that the station serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which scientific research is conducted in astrobiology, astronomy, meteorology, physics, and other fields.