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 ...
Evidence or reasoning?
Just south of there.
Hard to believe they could not confirm by now isn’t it?
This has been a great hour on FR...love those nights!
FReepers will know first.
contavespi
MightyScribe contavespi
looks like #UARS is still up there! Orbit 87.05 mins 121.7 x 126.4km Position 56.8S,96.8E alt=137.4km Lit [0.1d] ~Reentry-0.0h? WHERE???
2 minutes ago
Well, technically “all” of it came down. 8<)
But, realistically, the biggest pieces - NOT heaviest, but biggest surface area” are going to get broken off first. So the solar panel was probably the first to break off. Antennas, insulation, lightweight stuff like that. Those will burn up - there's not much mass. Smaller parts that are heavy will burn up like meteors do: Nuts, bolts, batteries, radio parts, structural support parts, motor and small parts. Those things will burn up as they come down very far - but will make a lot of long light streaks as they do burn - unless they are shielded by a bigger very heavy very dense gadget. Thin long things like wires and tubing and radio or radar and microwave antenna will burn very high up.
So they stuff that will penetrate the atmosphere will be very heavy - so not all of it burns up. Very dense and relatively compact. Think of a pressure vessel for fuel, or a tank, or a weldup frame (the bus frame.)
If you image a bus: The motor would survive - heavy, dense, not much sticking out. The battery would probably survive. The starting motor - after it broke off. The bus frame, wheels. Not the tires - they'd burn up. The seat would burn, the skin would burn. The mirrors and “stop sign” would burn off quickly. The furl tank - being very thin metal would burn up. The axle, the transmission, the drive shaft would survive. The gears and radio and bolts under the seats and seat buckles? Burn up.
You up near Mono Lake?
UARS will put on a show when it comes down, twitter will light up.
That’s just the location according to the model *if* it hasn’t already come down. The Twitter poster took that from the UARS Reentry Twitter page, where it’s pretty clear UARS is likely already down.
A few miles south. Very dark skies here.
Thanks as always LT ;)
Are you reading some journalist somewhere?
I’m watching the tracking. Australia is keeping watch overhead now.
Hitting Twitter would indeed make for a show.
I just took my sister and bro-in -law up there two weeks ago. My g-grandfather was the mining engineer at the May-Lundy mine around 1880. The mountain, Gilcrest Peak, on the south side of Lundy Lake was named after him.
By the way, that post sort of proves my point about journalists :)
If it up there it is passing over E. Australia right now
It’s passing over Victoria, now NSW Australia heading North-Northeast.
Um, no. You said: "It’s still overhead or at least a large portion of it is now flying over the Southwest Indian Ocean, according to the News."
I’m watching the tracking. Australia is keeping watch overhead now.
That isn't tracking in the literal sense - it's tracking the orbit, but UARS may not actually be in that orbit any more.
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