Doomed Russian Spacecraft Is Falling From Space, But Where Will It Fall?

Space.com ^ | Leonard David,

[BenLurkin]

Round and round it goes, but exactly where a failed Russian space cargo ship will fall to Earth on this week is a guessing game.

On April 28, Russia's uncrewed Progress 59 supply ship streaked into orbit atop a Soyuz launcher, intended to dock with the International Space Station. But shortly after liftoff ... Russian mission control team could not command the cargo vessel packed with nearly 3 tons of supplies.

Current forecasts predict that the Progress should fall to Earth in an uncontrolled, destructive nose-dive on Thursday (May 8) between 3:11 a.m. and 5:26 a.m. EDT (0711-0826 GMT). Some media reports from Russia are citing a Friday re-entry target. A more refined re-entry date and time will become available, according to experts tracking the spacecraft

...

There is the potential for pieces of Progress 59 to survive the fiery plunge through Earth's atmosphere and reach the surface, Krag said.

"With every re-entry of a large structure from space you can expect a small fraction to survive," Krag said. But there is an extremely small probability, he said, that somebody would be injured from the fall. "That's because the number of objects that survive is small … and the area over which they are distributed is so huge and mostly unpopulated," Krag said. Also, the large fuel load onboard Progress should burn up before it reaches Earth, he said.

Bill Ailor, a Distinguished Engineer and a re-entry and space debris expert at The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California, agrees with Krag's view.

Ailor said that the rule of thumb for re-entering spacecraft is that anywhere from 10 percent to 40 percent of the dry mass of the vehicle — the mass without propellants, liquids, and stored gas — will survive and impact the Earth's surface.

[Riley]

Is anybody else waxing nostalgic for KFRC’s ‘where is Skylab going to fall’ contest from the late Seventies? :-)

[Mastador1]

I was hoping either somewhere D.C. or Sacramento, but I was only looking for one casualty in those places. Well maybe two in D.C.

[Rodamala]

I say we start up a GoFundMe page to pay off Pootie Poot to have it wipe out the Capitol Building... GPS coordinates on McTurtlehead’s office.

[Rio]

Didn’t SkyLab land in Australia?

[BlueDragon]

Going by the link you provided;
it tracks from near tip of South America, entering being over Africa at near the Equator, to cross Eygpt then Israel (or just offshore of Israel), Sryia, clip the South of Turkey, cross over the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, then Kazakhstan (where it is just now leaving being over, at this writing) skim just North of the northern border of Mongolia, then cross Northwest China, after leaving space over mainland Asia cross over Japan, then back towards South America again...

On it's last pass --- let it end at

right dead center "bullseye'.

Or we could hope for a wild miss of that target, and end with it crashing the Dome (Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem)

wouldn't that be something.

Then the Jews could reclaim the land, and build a (third?) Temple.

Times would become interesting, if those things were to come to pass (or crash, whichever way one wants to look at it).

And if it wasn't attributed to God, then everybody could blame it on the Rooskies...

[Steven Scharf]

It is going ove Japn right now at midnight 5/7/2015 and it dropping about a mile a minute in altitude (curently at 98 miles).

[BlueDragon]

...checking the link again, it looks like my own hoped for ending of the thing may be an impossibility, in that each successive track seems to be further West of whichever last pass tracked over.

[Empireoftheatom48]

Will be replaced by an even stronger scope called the Webb!

[Steven Scharf]

Now about to cross dateline and equator at 4:08 am UTC and is dropping at about 1 mile every 5 minutes (not the mile a minute I reported before). So if it is suppose to crash this morning, it is halfway between the predicted time.

[BlueDragon]

It is presently gaining a bit of altitude.

On it's last pass over South America, iirc it was 121 miles altitude.

Just now reached 103 (and still climbing, relatively speaking).

[JRandomFreeper]

Depends on the international date line. It's always 2 different days on this planet, and I get confused.

/johnny

[Steven Scharf]

I see that now. Also, I think the Thursday refernce was wrong and it is set for rentry tomorrow morning.

[BlueDragon]

#SlashdownBingo

[BlueDragon]

wait, that's Splashdown bingo, not Slash down.

[onedoug]

Right into the Barringer Crater.

[diverteach]

Very cool link, thanks!
Watching altitude tick down. Appears to be descenting faster and faster.

[Cementjungle]

I saw something a couple of hours ago. I'm in FL, and saw something while looking west headed north, arc downward to the horizon... much bigger and slower than a regular shooting star, but still too fast to be a plane or anything like that. It was irregular shaped as well.

I wonder if a solar panel or something could have come off it early.

[hoagy62]

The altitude is increasing again. Makes me think it’s in a slightly elliptical orbit. At the next ‘low point’, maybe it’s then that it starts catching atmo. It slows down enough then, it’s “Goodnight Irene”.

[wiggen]

One day, just like in the sci fi books and the movies it will be a something larger like a really big meteor. Instead of fretting about where it will land the article should be about the steps being taken to blow it out of the sky. If we can’t do it with this now we’ll have no shot when something really damaging comes along.

[Windflier]

watch it's orbital track in real time on the N2YO web site

Thanks for the link.

I'm up late, and am watching it cross from the Pacific, over Argentina right now. Current altitude is 11 miles, headed North-East toward the upper right shoulder of the continent.