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 ...
IT should go below Australia and head back to the NW USA
It’s also known as Porkland!
Earlier reports (estimations) had it spanning out at 500 mile width? Lawdy I hope that’s not true.
I wish it wasn’t fogged in here on the north OR coast otherwise I might be able to see it! I’ll let you know if it crashes at my place and get something up on Ebay in a flash! LOL!
NASA gives 1-hour window for falling satellite
Sep 23 11:16 PM US/Eastern
By MARCIA DUNN
AP Aerospace Writer
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FILE - In this file image provided by NASA this is the STS-48 onboard photo...
Charts the debris in space since the 1950s.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - A 6-ton NASA satellite on a collision course with Earth clung to space Friday, apparently flipping position in its ever-lower orbit and stalling its death plunge.
The old research spacecraft was targeted to crash through the atmosphere sometime Friday night or early Saturday, putting Canada and Africa in the potential crosshairs, although most of the satellite should burn up during re-entry. The United States wasn’t entirely out of the woods; the possible strike zone skirted Washington state.
“It just doesn’t want to come down,” said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
McDowell said the satellite’s delayed demise demonstrates how unreliable predictions can be. That said, “the best guess is that it will still splash in the ocean, just because there’s more ocean out there.”
Well, the maps don’t zoom in so good, but if it clears the Pacific it will definitely come into the Pacific Northwest...
I don’t think there’s enough time left to get that far...
Or I could post the time as GMT -7.0 so you can figure out what the PDT time is!
Now that’s funny!
No math-—I’ve had wine!
Twitter feed says reentry in about .5 hour, 30 minutes. But about half an orbit left before it would get to North America, at current speed, that would be 43 minutes...
It’s lowest altitude so far is 79.2 miles above the Earth. Re-entry starts around 76 miles.
I was a little worried because earlier reports said it was ‘slowing down’.
Obama did this for the place he was born.
between Australia and the south pole now
It’s supposed to do that since as it descends the atmosphere gets thicker.
Just saw a whole squadron of black helicopters overfly headed toward the coast (WA/OR). We’ve got incoming!!!
Well it is slowing down, it’s losing speed, that’s why it’s losing altitude...
Time to put on the ole Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie sans propeller.
Gotcha. Thanks. :-)
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