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Delta Rocket Crashes In Mongolia
Dr La writes "Two metal objects, one cylindrical and a smaller round one, crashed near Buren Soum in the Tuv province of Mongolia, in an empty field, on 19 February. They are parts of an American Delta II rocket stage (nr. 35939, 2009-052C) that launched the military STSS Demo 1 & 2 satellites in September 2009. Both articles linked above say that the larger of the two objects is 7.5 meters in diameter, but in this photo it looks more like 7.5 feet. It is marked with the serial number '02728.' (The military STSS program is intended for space-based detection and tracking of missiles.) In the months leading up to the February 19 orbital decay over Mongolia, the fall of the rocket stage was followed by amateur satellite trackers. Based on their final orbit determinations just hours before the decay, the decay must have occurred near 3:32 UTC on February 19."
It seems surprising that the tank isn't crushed, but other tanks have come down from space without being crushed flat.
You will be modded "interesting" or "insightful" simply because you are bandying around wild technical terms that make it sound like you know what you're talking about (to people who know nothing about rockets). Yet the truth is nothing you say is grounded in any kind of relationship to the real world. Except maybe blowing the thing into smaller parts. But tethers? What are you smoking?
That title is just a tiny bit sensationalist... I had images failed launch flashing through my mind. A final stage dropping to earth was a bit of a disappointment :-/
I guess you mean "Steptoe and Son", the original.
I've been to Mongolia. In the steppes and desert areas the ground is sometimes a *very* hard surface. Also it is possible the objects bounced or rolled a few metres before coming to a stop. There's not quite enough resolution in the pictures to tell for certain, but the lower left corner of the upper photo (below where the guy is bending over to look at the debris) looks a bit like there is a shallow pit and some whitish, crushed rock. It's also February -- the ground is probably frozen. In this picture you can see patches of snow.