Bus-sized satellite to crash into Earth

[Phil Fiord]

Another site that actually loads with the sat info

http://www.2012infocenter.com/

[Phil Fiord]

btw, I know its a tin foil hat site, but the info is still there to see the tracking etc and it loads.

[American Patriot]

The fact that the satellite hasn't started to hit the atmosphere makes it pretty difficult to guess the exact orbit or time of impact or anything.

The satellite will start to "bounce" over the top of the atmosphere as it gets closer and closer. A few molecules of air will impact the vehicle and start heating the surface. Eventually more and more molecules will impact, slowing the vehicle that much more. As it slows to below orbital speed the satellite will begin its final, fatal plunge through the atmosphere.

The heating of the outside surface will hit likely thousands of degrees and parts will break off and spread away from the satellite. The biggest pieces probably won't melt or burn up completely. The smaller pieces will vaporize.

The chances of getting hit by this thing are extremely small.

[Toad]

btw, I know its a tin foil hat site, but the info is still there to see the tracking etc and it loads.

Heh. I actually enjoy tin foil hat sites. Every now and then there is actually an interesting nugget in there from all the thinking completely outside the box. (Or even the room, the house, the street the box is in.)

An excellent collection of conspiracy/tin foil theorists:

http://www.thelivingmoon.com/

I've killed many an hour reading with quivering anticipation about the secret CIA Mars base we have. (But shhhhh. Don't tell anyone. Black Ops.)

[American Patriot]

Ummmm who the hell told them about the CIA bases! Bastards!

[Ryan Ruck]

If I get a piece of the Space School Bus Of Doom, should I keep it or eBay it?

Hmmm... Decisions, decisions...

[American Patriot]

ebay

[American Patriot]

September 22, 2011
Vague Predictions as Satellite Falls to Earth

Suzanne Presto | Washington


[IMG]http://media.voanews.com/images/300*311/AP_Falling_Satellite_111111111_480.jpg[/IMG] Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this image provided by NASA this is the STS-48 onboard photo of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) in the grasp of the RMS (Remote Manipulator System) during deployment, from the shuttle in September 1991. The satellite is 35 feet long, 15 feet in diameter, weighs 13,000 pounds. U.S. space officials say they expect a dead satellite to fall to Earth in about a week. NASA has been watching the 6-ton satellite closely. NASA scientists are doing their best to tell us where a plummeting 6-ton satellite will fall later this week. It's just that if they're off a little bit, it could mean the difference between hitting Florida or New York. Or, say, Iran or India. (AP Photo/NASA)


At this very moment, the U.S. Department of Defense's Joint Space Operations Center is tracking thousands of pieces of space junk orbiting our Earth. But, even as the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite known as UARS comes hurtling back toward our planet, experts say it is hard to determine just when or where it will reenter the atmosphere.

Both the Department of Defense and NASA say it is nearly impossible to precisely predict where and when free-falling space debris will reenter the atmosphere, let alone strike or splash down on the planet.

Major Michael Duncan is the deputy chief of space situational awareness at the Defense Department's Joint Space Operations Center, known as JSpOC. He says radars, telescopes and even assets in space provide positional data for orbital debris. A team strings those data points together to create orbits.

"And with the right software you can take an orbit and from where it is right now you can predict where it will be, you know, one, two, three hours from now," Duncan said.

He said a five-member team at JSpOC works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, collecting updates from around the world.

"We take in about 450,000 observations per day, and that helps us track the 22,000 space objects that we track currentl," he said.

Major Duncan said UARS is easy to track because it is about the size of a school bus. But even with all the data points, high-tech software, and the team's accurate predictions, there are multiple variables that can have an effect on when and where debris will reenter.

For instance, Duncan said, it is impossible to determine the way the debris will react once it reaches the atmosphere.

Like a stone skipping across a lake, space junk can bounce across the upper atmosphere. And, Duncan said, even JSpOC's reentry predictions come with a window of plus or minus 15 minutes.

"But even that plus-or-minus 15 minutes can be a track of 5,000 miles difference," he said.

Most of UARS is expected to disintegrate as it reenters Earth's atmosphere.

Mark Matney, an orbital debris scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas, says a craft's orientation can even have an effect on how fast it decays.

"It's basically an inert object, and so it can be tumbling. Let's just say it's tumbling in such a way that it presents a large area or small area, it could speed up the rate at which it decays or slows it down," he said.

Matney says solar activity is another variable.

"Sometimes the energy from the sun goes up a little bit and causes the atmosphere to heat up and actually expand, and when that happens, it can accelerate the decay rate of the satellite. If the solar activity were to go down, it would actually cause the atmosphere to cool and contract, and so the spacecraft would not encounter quite as much atmosphere and would slow down its decay," he said.

Major Duncan at JSpOC notes there was a solar storm last week that immediately changed the satellite's anticipated reentry by three days.

UARS was launched 20 years ago and decommissioned in 2005. Matney says times and technologies have changed since 1991.

"Unfortunately, because UARS is an older satellite, it was not designed with the capability to do a targeted reentry, and we've done that before. The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory is a good example where we actually were able to target its reentry over the Pacific Ocean, out in the middle of the ocean where it wouldn't hurt anybody," Matney said.

Still, NASA says the likelihood of UARS hurting anyone is slim. The U.S. space agency says it has no confirmed reports of a person ever being injured or property being significantly damaged by falling debris.

And, given that more than two-thirds of the planet is covered by water, it is likely that UARS will land with a splash and not a thud.

[American Patriot]

NASA: Falling satellite still a hazard to U.S.

1:23 PM, Sep 23, 2011 | comments






CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's falling $750 million satellite is slowing its approach to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, and the spacecraft now is expected to make its destructive plunge back toward Earth late Friday or early Saturday.

NASA also back-tracked on previous reports that the satellite would not be passing over North America during its reentry.

"There is a low probability that any debris that survives will land in the United States, but the possibility cannot be discounted," NASA said Friday in its latest update.

The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is skimming along in an orbit with high and low points of 105 miles and 100 miles. Solar activity no longer is influencing the satellite's rate of descent, and the spacecraft's orientation apparently has changed. Those two factors are slowing its fall.

NASA said it's still too early to say exactly when the 6.5-ton satellite will re-enter the atmosphere or where any surviving debris might fall. Air Force space surveillance trackers will be refining predictions in the next 12 to 18 hours.

NASA experts expect 26 parts of the spacecraft to survive reentry and fall back to Earth. Total weight of the parts: about 1,200 pounds.

And with about 70 percent of the planet covered by water, NASA says the odds of any single person being struck by debris are 1 in 3,200.


*Track the UARS satellite
By TODD HALVORSON
Florida Today

[American Patriot]

NASA is saying the satellite has "changed course and slowed it's orbit, as well as descent..."

[American Patriot]

USA is now a potential target again....

probably gonna drop in the ocean.

[American Patriot]

Looks like Peterle is safe again.

[Malsua]

I give it a roughly 70% chance of dropping in the ocean.

[American Patriot]

LOL

Of COURSE it was too easy, that's why he SAID IT!

Ok...

I give it a 30% chance of falling on land.

[American Patriot]

If I remember correctly, the Pacific is significantly larger than Europe/Russia/Asia (altogether) - and you're looking at a Mercator projection chart there.

That means the stuff in the northern hemisphere APPEARS much larger than it really is especially above about 40 degrees north or so.

[American Patriot]

hey, I dunno about YOU, but I have to say I am quite HAPPY living on a sphere. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ryan Ruck]

What's this?!?! I thought all us Conservative bumpkins thought the Earth was flat?

[Malsua]

Huge Tumbling Satellite Could Fall to Earth Over US Tonight or Saturday, NASA Says


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.

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"The satellite's orientation or configuration apparently has changed, and that is now slowing its descent," NASA officials wrote in a status update Friday morning. "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." [Complete coverage of NASA's falling satellite]
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. [6 Biggest Spacecraft to Fall Uncontrolled From Space]
NASA officials have said the the chances that a piece of UARS debris hits and injures one of the nearly 7 million people on the planet are about 1 in 3,200. However, the personal odds of you being struck by UARS satellite debris are actually about 1 in several trillion, NASA officials have said.
As of 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT) Friday, the UARS satellite was flying in an orbit of about 100 miles by 105 miles (160 kilometers by 170 km), and dropping. NASA launched the UARS satellite in 1991 to study Earth's ozone layer and upper atmosphere. The satellite was decommissioned in 2005.
"Re-entry is expected late Friday, Sept. 23, or early Saturday, Sept. 24, Eastern Daylight Time," NASA officials wrote. "Solar activity is no longer the major factor in the satellite's rate of descent."

The sun has had an extremely active week, one that has included several solar flares. High solar activity can cause the Earth's atmosphere to heat and expand, which can increase drag on a low-flying satellite like UARS, making it fall faster.
Late Wednesday (Sept. 21), NASA predicted that the UARS satellite would not be over North America when it finally plunged down to the Earth's surface. That scenario has changed now that the 20-year-old satellite's descent has slowed, the agency said.
But where the UARS spacecraft will fall still remains anyone's guess. NASA orbital debris experts have said the satellite could fall anywhere between the latitudes of Northern Canada and Southern South America, a region of Earth that encompasses much of the planet.
"It is still too early to predict the time and location of re-entry with any certainty, but predictions will become more refined in the next 12 to 18 hours," NASA officials wrote in the latest update.

[American Patriot]

I heard it landed on the Vatican....

[American Patriot]

I saw video yesterday that it fell down someplace already.