German Satellite To Fall From Sky

BBC News reports that a German satellite is soon to fall from sky. According to the article: "The Roentgen Satellite (Rosat) is due to come back to Earth at some stage over the weekend - possibly Sunday. Just as for NASA's UARS satellite, which plunged into the atmosphere in September, no one can say precisely when and where Rosat will come in. What makes the redundant German craft's return interesting is that much more debris this time is likely to survive all the way to the Earth's surface. Experts calculate that perhaps as much as 1.6 tonnes of wreckage - more than half the spacecraft's launch mass - could ride out the destructive forces of re-entry and hit the planet."

Comments

Re:It would be neat...

[tomhudson]

How about if it fell on some holy site that the 3 major religions are fighting over, and obliterated it completely, leaving nothing to fight over except a big smoking hole in the ground? "An act of God Allah | FSM".

There are some places it CAN'T come down.

[Technician]

Another news story totally lacking facts.. Why can't any news organization list the ground track of any of these? Knowing if it geosynchronous, geostationary, Polar, or other orbit can list the maximum latitudes this craft will reach. They make me do the research myself. The ground track is listed here;
http://www.heavens-above.com/orbit.aspx?satid=20638&lat=50.733&lng=7.100&loc=Bonn&alt=57&tz=CET

Northern Siberia, parts of Alaska, Greenland and Antarctica can't be hit by this. Saying it can come down anywhere is FALSE.