Posted on 09/23/2011 10:07:53 AM PDT by Evil Slayer
A huge, dead satellite tumbling to Earth is falling slower than expected, and may now plummet down somewhere over the United States tonight or early Saturday, despite forecasts that it would miss North America entirely, NASA officials now say.
The 6 1/2-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) was expected to fall to Earth sometime this afternoon (Sept. 23), but changes in the school bus-size satellite's motion may push it to early Saturday, according to NASA's latest observations of the spacecraft.
"The satellite's orientation or configuration apparently has changed, and that is now slowing its descent," NASA officials wrote in a morning status update today. "There is a low probability any debris that survives re-entry will land in the United States, but the possibility cannot be discounted because of this changing rate of descent."
NASA expects about 26 large pieces of the UARS spacecraft to survive re-entry through Earth's atmosphere and reach the planet's surface. The biggest piece should weigh about 300 pounds. The spacecraft is the largest NASA satellite to fall from space uncontrolled since 1979.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
“Huge Tumbling Satellite” - stinkin’ gymnast satellite of death. “I give it a 9.7. It didn’t quite stick the finish and I thought the Russian satellite was better.”
LOL! I'll bet the payout's similar to a push at a blackjack table at Winstar Casino in OK: you don't win, but you still lose, because you have to pay the dealer $1 per hand (or so I've heard).
There’s a twitter feed for the UARS now. They say four more orbits,so look up San Diego or offshore Oregon!
http://twitter.com/#!/UARS_Reentry
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The impact is suppose to effect 500 miles.What 500 miles will this be? Is it still off CA coast barely?
One could always hope it lands on the U.N. Lots of targets in there right now.
They really can’t just blow it up. The junk left in space would take out every other satellite that came along.
What’s the estimated impact speed, anybody know?
They could have done it as it was coming down. They did not want to spend the money on it. Life is cheap.
watch the video here. It may still be unclear speed of broken pieces at impact.
http://www.space.com/13062-falling-nasa-satellite-reentry-united-states.html
Meteor shower?
I dunno, to ME, it seems like a TARGET for one of our ASAT weapons....
The big 330lb chunk about 130MPH,the small bits up to 240MPH. It looks to be headed for the Pacific off the Oregon coast.
7:55PM-8:25PM PDT should be a light show over Oregon. Hard Hats suggested
They’ve removed the Re-entry clock gadget from that site now.
Do you have any verification of that or is it just something you heard?
@UARS_Reentry says Washington State, not Oregon. Still in the Pacific, thankfully!
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