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First Photos of the Reentry of the ATV "Jules Verne"
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.
I guess the summary could have been clearer about this being an intentional breakup during re-entry. The craft is designed to be destroyed after use.
It depends on the design/shape of the object. But generally a bit above mach 1. A blunt reentry object will cause a very strong shock wave at the front of the craft and will cause much more heating than a sharp object. Once you hit about Mach 5 IIRC the heating issue is getting quite serious. Reentry is about >7000m/s (speed of sound at that height does not really make sense) and causes extreme heating no matter what the design. For comparison Mach 1 is about 350 m/s at sea level.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
The Jules Verne was carrying nothing but rubbish; it was intentionally burned up on re-entry. It's just a supply ship: it carries stuff up to the Station, serves as a little extra habitable volume while docked (I hear some of the crew have found it a very quiet place and have pressed it into service as sleeping quarters), and finally carries away waste and junk and incinerates the lot in the atmosphere.
With the uncertainty over the future of the American manned capability, there is now talk of developing an upgraded ATV which would include a re-entry module, and make ATV into a complete manned spaceflight system. Mind you, there's always talk; ESA headquarters is full of extremely expensive paperwork relating to manned spacecraft that never flew. At least in this case there's something concrete to point at, though.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
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.
The video of the re-entry is just beautiful !
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
Logical and correct, although supersonic heating has nothing to do with friction.
Something moving through air pushes that air out of the way. At subsonic speeds (i.e. below the maximum speed the air as a fluid can move) this carries heat away from the aircraft. At supersonic speeds, the air simply cannot get out of the way quick enough, so piles up against the fuselage. This compression (not friction) creates heat.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?