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3.5 Ton Satellite to Crash Back to Earth
DeadBugs writes "CNN is reporting that the NASA Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer could crash back to earth in a matter of days. It's estimated that up to 9 large pieces (4-100 lbs.) of the Satellite could survive re-entry. Unlike the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory that was guided in, this Satellite will be uncontrolled. The EUVE has only been up there since 1992.... I wonder when this sort of thing will start to be a more common event."
Not yet. It is falling without thrusters or any way to move itself. Only time will tell it's exact trajectory.
The article did mention that the trail from this thing could stretch up to 625 miles. They also said that the parts that won't burn up are made out of titanium and steel. Seeing as Titanium is really expensive, if all of it hit me in the head; at least I could sell it to pay for the medical bills!
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Actually, debris entering the atmosphere (man-made and not) is a common occurrence. Happens everyday on some scale. It isn't just everyday a 3.5 ton one comes down :)
I believe US Space Command/NASA/NORAD spends a ton of time tracking objects in close orbit, even very small ones the size of your finger.
After all, anything going 17500 miles per hour hitting something like the space shuttle or Hubble or any other satellite (GPS, communications, spy/defense) wouldn't be pretty.
Someone who worked for NASA at MSFC told me that they have actually had astronauts on the space shuttle change the shuttle's orbit slightly in order to avoid certain large pieces of debris.
- Nothing is true, everything is permitted
From an engineering perspective (as in IAAES), I'd say that it makes sense to cut initial costs by designing the thing for a short lifespan. If it only needs to be in orbit for ten years, then why bother over-engineering it for more? The costs would go through the roof. Maintaining anything in space after that term is expensive enough on it's own. It's a better idea to build another one and send it up after a set time.
3.5 tons of material isn't much anyways, it will come back to Earth. Big deal. We could only hope that it would land in the backyard of a certain resident of Holland, MI.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
EUVE Home (UCal. Berkeley)
Info on satellite tracking here. Track the orbit, and place bets on where it will land. (note, the farthest north is someplace in florida.)
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Here are some stats for comparison
Being killed in a car accident: one in 5,300
Being a drowning victim: one in 20,000
Choking to death: one in 68,000
Being killed in a bicycle accident: one in 75,000
Being killed by lightning: one in 2 million
Being killed by falling debris from a satellite: one in 4 million
Dying from a bee sting: one in 6 million
Winning the current Power Ball Jackpot of $10 million dollars: one in 80 million
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Can you tell me where a piece of paper dropped off a skyscraper will land?
The weather in low earth orbit is just as unpredictable as the weather at the ground, and just as variable. The density of the atmosphere around satellites (and thus the drag force on them) can vary by an order of magnitude. If the satellite loses orientation (which it is essentially certain to as drag forces overcome tidal or powered stabilization) then its coefficient of drag changes as well, and unpredictably when it rotates. It may not even have just drag acting on it; even in orbit an angled surface can produce just as much lift as drag, and when the satellite hits the atmosphere its shape could produce more lift than drag.
And of course, for every second by which the atmosphere delays reentry, the satellite has moved 5 miles in its orbit. 5 mi/s * 3600 s/hr * 9 hr gives a nice 160,000 mile strip of possible landing sites, crossing around and around the whole globe. If you'd like to gamble about the probability of something being hit by one of the chunks, though, I suggest placing your money on "no".
It won't be travelling nearly that fast when it hits the ground. Terminal velocity is much lower. There is at least 1 case of someone being hit by a meteor and surviving with only a bruise.
NASA's got a cool little Java applet you can play with to see the satellites and their orbits.
It's a simulation based on posted data, I gather, rather than any kind of tracker, and I'm sure there are dozens of black satellites not listed, but it's still very neat. You can zoom in/out and around the earth, pick specific satellites from categories, changes the time speed, etc. There's also all the favourites such as the shuttle (when it's up), the ISS, Mir, Hubble, COBE, etc. You can also load a web page with more info about any given satellite, such as when it was launched, what it carries, and so on.
Enjoy!
5. Aircraft, including self-propelled missiles and spacecraft.
Who knows, maybe my insurance company would go after the spacecraft designers/operators/whoever -- or, more likely, after their insurance agency.
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