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Defunct Satellite Will Fall To Earth This Week


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Posted
  • Location: Runcorn, Cheshire
  • Weather Preferences: Snowy winters, hot, sunny springs and summers.
  • Location: Runcorn, Cheshire

http://www.2012infocenter.com/

Live streaming.. shows that it's going to pass over some very densely populated areas.. looks like it might pass right over Birmingham and London

Well yes... It's travelling around the Earth. It's not avoiding anywhere. :lol:

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Posted
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Anything but mild south-westeries in winter
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl

Well yes... It's travelling around the Earth. It's not avoiding anywhere. laugh.png

You never know.. it might have orbited the Canadian Tundra and Sahara desert without stepping foot in England. wink.png

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Posted
  • Location: Whaley Bridge - Peak District
  • Location: Whaley Bridge - Peak District

next pass for the UK is going to be 9pm tomorrow evening. If you didn't see it this evening then looks like odds are you won't again.

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Posted
  • Location: Bognor Regis West Sussex
  • Location: Bognor Regis West Sussex

Well unless it stays up far longer than expected we can all say we are safe in the UK now as that was the last risky pass for us just gone. Spain's chance next pass I think. Ah well, I am not staying up all night so will read up on here tomorrow. Thanks to all who posted those tracking links.

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Posted
  • Location: Stanwell(south side of Heathrow Ap)
  • Weather Preferences: Thunderstorms, squally fronts, snow, frost, very mild if no snow or frost
  • Location: Stanwell(south side of Heathrow Ap)
Posted
  • Location: South East Cambridgeshire 57m ASL
  • Location: South East Cambridgeshire 57m ASL

Part of an article from Reuters this morning:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Sept 24 (Reuters) - A six-tonnes NASA science satellite plunged through the atmosphere early on Saturday, breaking up and possibly scattering debris in Canada, NASA said.

There were reports on Twitter of debris falling over Okotoks, a town south of Calgary in western Canada, most likely the remains of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, which had been in orbit for 20 years.

Scientists were unable to pinpoint the exact time and place where UARS would return to Earth due to the satellite's unpredictable tumbles as it plowed through the upper atmosphere. Re-entry was believed to have occurred between 11:45 p.m. EDT on Friday and 12:45 a.m. EDT on Saturday (0345 to 0445 GMT Saturday).

Stretching 35 feet (10.6 metres) long and 15 feet (4.5 metres) in diameter, UARS was among the largest spacecraft to plummet uncontrollably through the atmosphere, although it is a slim cousin to NASA's 75-tonnes skylab station, which crashed to Earth in 1979.

Russia's last space station, the 135-tonnes Mir, crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 2001, but it was a guided descent.

NASA now plans for the controlled re-entry of large spacecraft, but it did not when UARS was designed.

The 13,000-pound (5,897 kg) satellite was dispatched into orbit by a space shuttle crew in 1991 to study ozone and other chemicals in Earth's atmosphere. It completed its mission in 2005 and had been slowly losing altitude ever since, pulled by the planet's gravity.

Most of the spacecraft burned up during the fiery plunge through the atmosphere, but about 26 individual pieces, weighing a total of about 1,100 pounds (500 kg) could have survived the incineration and landed somewhere on Earth.

The debris field spans about 500 miles (805 km), but exactly where it is located depends on when UARS descended

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/24/space-debris-nasa-idUSS1E78N00920110924

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Posted
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Anything but mild south-westeries in winter
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl

NASA can now confirm UARS has fallen back to earth. Exact location is still unknown.

Edited by Aaron
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Posted
  • Location: Poole, Dorset 42m ASL
  • Location: Poole, Dorset 42m ASL

Part of an article from Reuters this morning:

http://www.reuters.c...E78N00920110924

NASA's view is a little different from 10mins ago the update stated

NASA’s decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite fell back to Earth between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 23 and 1:09 a.m. EDT Sept. 24. The satellite was passing eastward over Canada and Africa as well as vast portions of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans during that period. The precise re-entry time and location are not yet known with certainty.

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Posted
  • Location: Poole, Dorset 42m ASL
  • Location: Poole, Dorset 42m ASL

Update from Nasa:

NASA’s decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite fell back to Earth between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 23 and 1:09 a.m. EDT Sept. 24. The Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California said the satellite penetrated the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. The precise re-entry time and location are not yet known with certainty.

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Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

NASA can now confirm UARS has fallen back to earth. Exact location is still unknown.

It didn't fall on Eastbourne as far as I know!

NASA says a defunct 6-ton satellite has fallen from the sky. The agency posted on its official Twitter site that the spacecraft crashed through the atmosphere early Saturday morning. A location was not immediately known. Most of it was believed to have burned up. The Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite was NASA's biggest spacecraft to tumble out of orbit, uncontrolled, in 32 years. UARS was launched aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1991. NASA decommissioned the satellite in 2005, after moving it into a lower orbit that cut its life short by two decades. Bits of space junk re-enter the atmosphere virtually every day. No injuries have ever been reported from it.

http://www.seattlepi...p#ixzz1Yr9Cg6rG

The American space agency said decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite fell back to Earth between 11.23pm and 1.09am on Saturday morning (3.23am GMT to 5.09am GMT). Tracking of the satellite, which broke up during its re-entry through the atmosphere, showed it was passing eastwards over Canada and areas of open ocean.

Nasa said it was still trying to determine the precise re-entry time and location. Unconfirmed reports on Twitter suggested some of the debris may have fallen near a town south of Calgary in western Canada. A Nasa statement by on the UARS website said: "The satellite was passing eastward over Canada and Africa as well as vast portions of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans during that period.

"The precise re-entry time and location are not yet known with certainty."

http://www.telegraph...dian-Ocean.html

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Posted
  • Location: Whaley Bridge - Peak District
  • Location: Whaley Bridge - Peak District

Going with what we know how the orbital sims were showing this morning, the track was ever progressive Eastwards with each pass taking it further out into the Pacific but still giving parts of Washington State, Alaska & Central/Eastern Canada chance of potential debris impact. Lets say it plunged at the end of its lowered elliptical stage which would put it just offshore the US/Canadian border. The heaviest segment of the satellite would have ended up in the ocean whereas the lighter fragments carried on ahead of it. Scattering across the remote border. I don't know what the weather is like there at the moment which could also be a contributing factor for the lack of visual obs confirming the breakup.

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Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

The debris has landed, says Nasa. Just don't ask us where

The fact that its descent began over the ocean and that there have been no reports of people being hit "gives us a good feeling that no one was hurt," Stephen Cole, a Nasa spokesman, said. But officials didn't know for certain.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-debris-has-landed-says-nasa-just-dont-ask-us-where-2360510.html

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Posted
  • Location: Poole, Dorset 42m ASL
  • Location: Poole, Dorset 42m ASL

Finally, the answer s out there. Ignoring the producer on the Chris Moyles show who said he saw it travelling back at Didcot Parkway !!Doh.

It landed here:

Nasa's UARS spacecraft fell to Earth to the north-east of the Vanuatu archipelago.

Orbital tracking experts have now established that the defunct satellite entered the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean at 14.1 degrees South latitude and 170.2 degrees West longitude.

Any debris that survived Saturday's fiery descent would have plunged into open water, the US space agency says.

The exact time the six-tonne craft engaged the atmosphere is now given as 0401 GMT.

Edited by Dorsetbred
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