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 ...
That is mighty close to the CA. coast.Is that accurate or projected guessing?
I don’t believe they did not know where it was landing. I also wonder why they went to the astroid to study it rather than going to this equipment to blow it up.
They are just breaking eggs - too many humans stinking up their globe anyway. Human life is trash to them this administration. I want congressional hearings on this. The priorities here are up-side-down.
If one person gets killed by the government’s equipment falling from space, that is 100% too many lives sacrificed for the them. They could have blown it up in space.
LOL, OMG, you’re right! Be wild if it came down on Roswell. The govt would never live it down.
Where is Bruce Willis when we need him????
Obama cut the funding.
Since San Fransisco is in proximity to the projected crash zone, maybe we’ll get lucky and it winds up landing on Pelosi’s head.
accurate guessing?
The track I posted was calculated by the Heavens Above site using my lat/lon and request fot visible passes. Not a guess, but the bird may crash before that point in time.
My policy specifically excludes “space debris”, natural and man made. I chuckled when I read it but now...
whats that ??? we didnt build it ??? nevermind...better grab an umbrella...
I'm rooting for Mecca, myself.
Not in the spec. Rev 2.
I've been in military aerospace manufacturing and a fair bit of it was a corrupt racket.
IIRC, the Russian system, which existed before SDI, simply sends a nuke up there to blast it. Maybe we should put out a contract on it.
If those are the odds, then 10,000 people in America will likely be hit by pieces of it.
Wonder if anybody would be able to tell the difference in a before/after picture?
We’ll keep you updated. BTW, is your sister’s moose-bite healing okay?
The difference is that in this case the scientists (or more likely engineers) are saying “We don’t know” which is a whole lot more credible than “The science is settled”.
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