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First Photos of the Reentry of the ATV "Jules Verne"

Posted by kdawson on from the down-in-flames-seventy-five-km-up dept.

White Yeti writes with news of the reentry breakup of the ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle. All went as planned, and the ESA blog has preliminary photos. An international team of observers, in two aircraft south of Tahiti, saw a series of explosions and over a hundred small pieces of debris. Observations were mostly made using optical cameras and spectrographs. The two images on the ESA site are low-res samples, so we should get more spectacular images soon.

2 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Question about atmospheric friction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Another example is the SR71 "Blackbird". It was designed so that all parts would fit perfectly only when it was very hot during flight. And since it lacked a heat resistant fuel containment seal, it would leak fuel in the ground until it took off, flew for some time to heat up and then it had to be refueled on air.

  2. Wow ! by o'reor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The video of the re-entry is just beautiful !

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