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Doomed Russian Spacecraft Re-Enters Atmosphere Over Pacific Ocean

Posted by Soulskill on from the unlucky-dolphin-has-really-bad-day dept.

astroengine sends word that the Russian cargo ship that spun out of control after launching on a mission to the ISS on April 28 has re-entered the atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. Orbital tracking indicated the re-entry took place at 2:20 UTC. Its orbital speed and location were not known with perfect precision, but any bits of the spacecraft that didn't burn up are believed to have landed in the ocean between 350 and 1,300 kilometers off the west coast of Chile.

According to Spaceflight 101, "The component with the highest probability of reaching the ground is the docking mechanism of the spacecraft as one of the most dense spacecraft systems. The docking system hosts an 80-centimeter hatch that is surrounded by the docking interface hosting the hooks and pressure seals facilitated on a massive metal ring. Overall, the system has a mass of 200 Kilograms much of which could reach the ground since the closed hatch would most likely not separate from the docking system and the unit will return mostly intact."

33 comments

  1. No I didn't! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ha ha still here! Good luck finding me now, suckers!

    - Progress M-27M

    1. Re:No I didn't! by MightyYar · · Score: 2

      While NASA has been known to launch astronauts directly from Walmart, they tend to favor people in slightly better shape. That's the standard hatch size, and was used even on the shuttle. The US side of the ISS does in fact use a larger, 50 inch (note the nice round-number imperial measurement) square hatch - but that was to accommodate the equipment racks that are used in the US-designed modules.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:No I didn't! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      While NASA has been known to launch astronauts directly from Walmart, they tend to favor people in slightly better shape. That's the standard hatch size, and was used even on the shuttle. The US side of the ISS does in fact use a larger, 50 inch (note the nice round-number imperial measurement) square hatch - but that was to accommodate the equipment racks that are used in the US-designed modules.

      I know astronauts are among the "best of the best". They have to be very smart, disciplined, and athletic all at the same time. I truly respect them.

      But I get sick of going to the grocery store and seeing so many 30 and 40 somethings who are well over 100 pounds overweight. Some of them probably weigh around 400 pounds or more in fact. They're the ones using the wheeled electric fat-carts because they've completely surrendered to their obesity - they're defeated and they won't even try getting even a little exercise no matter how badly they need it. I have no idea what they live for or what kind of quality of life they hope to have. Some of them are 300 pounds or less and will at least walk, with that hideous sideways waddle-shuffle that's nothing like the graceful human gait. Often they have morbidly obese children tagging along, well on their way to having no quality of life either.

      It's disguting, for a while. Then it can't even be that, anymore. Then it's just plain disheartening. Plenty of people around this sad world are legitimate victims, suffering because someone else wanted money or power badly enough to inflict grevious injustice against them. My heart goes out to them, it really does. But these fatties suffer for no reason other than their own bad decision-making. Sympathy is wasted on them. They are ponderous monuments to everything wrong with the excesses of our society. And it's getting worse, not better. How bad does it have to get before other people see it and say the same thing I said: "this is just not going to happen to me"? Do they think the government or the health-care industry or anyone other than themselves is ever going to do that? Because this crop of fatbodies and their steady demand for medical intervention is far too profitable for anything like that to even try to happen, supposing it could even be done at all.

    3. Re:No I didn't! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no responsibility in errors. One is wrong because of an irrationality that one cannot fully grasp, or control, because of many parameters external to one's true will.

      They are deeply in error, exactly as 7.3 billion other humans are deeply in error about almost everything, exactly as 100 billion more have been in the past. We know next to nothing of our real needs, our real desires, about happiness, love, and fulfillment, about ourselves, and how to live with others in peace, in a developed society, in order to tranquilly experience the full diversity of the existence.

      Intense stress and frustration, being born in today society, are creating and recreating many psychological complexes, from birth to death, leading to the creation and perpetuation of so many artificial problems, and an immense difficulty to really solve or even manage any of them. We do a bit, locally, temporarily, while often creating even more problems on the way.

      We reduce and negate ourselves. We say we are terribly horrible by nature. We say we are monsters. We hate ourselves. There is no possible happiness today, for anyone at all, and rationality is extremely difficult to even approach.

      Whether you think you are 'trolling' or not, your aggressiveness is directly exclusively at yourself, because you hate yourself, just as we all hate ourselves. We hate ourselves for being so miserable, in such a miserable society, even though it seems everything could be so beautiful and rich. It seems so remote, we hate ourselves for loving. We hate ourselves for longing, still, for love, among the cries and screams of terror and suffering all around us, from us too, during our entire life.

      The truth is in reason, and the responsibility of being right. There is no other truth, nor any other responsibility. The one way to unlock this situation is through reason alone, from those who can now, to everyone else as possible.

      Have a candy.

  2. Feeling hot hot hot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Burn baby burn.

  3. Oceans on Earth by Ashenkase · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Are really, really big. Though the odds were in their favor Roscosmos dodged a bullet here.

    1. Re:Oceans on Earth by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Are really, really big. Though the odds were in their favor Roscosmos dodged a bullet here.

      Sounds more like a[n intercontinental] bullet dodged Chile.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Oceans on Earth by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      Even if you hit land, the odds of it being inhabited land are extremely slim.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    3. Re:Oceans on Earth by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

      Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts compared to space.

  4. With a bit of luck by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 0

    It'll fall on and uncover MH370

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  5. "the unit will return mostly intact." by Isarian · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For *some* values of intact.

  6. Free docking system!! by NotDrWho · · Score: 1

    I call dibs!

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  7. Im gunna sing The Doom Song now! by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    Doom doom doom doom doom, doom doom do DOOM, DOOOM doom do-doom, DOOM do-doom doom doooom, doom doom dooom, do-do-DOOOM!

    1. Re:Im gunna sing The Doom Song now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is that the one from E1M6 or E3M2?

    2. Re:Im gunna sing The Doom Song now! by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

      Invader Zim. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  8. Poor George Lass! by tekrat · · Score: 1

    She's gonna get killed by a docking ring this time around.

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
    1. Re:Poor George Lass! by NotDrWho · · Score: 1

      I guess it's not as embarrassing as drilling a hole in your own head. Now THAT would be a humiliating death!

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  9. Look like one of my Kerbal mission... by Eloking · · Score: 3, Funny

    .....actually, look like most of my Kerbal mission.....

    --
    Elok
    1. Re:Look like one of my Kerbal mission... by Greyfox · · Score: 1

      Jebidiah will be sorely missed.

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    2. Re:Look like one of my Kerbal mission... by Eloking · · Score: 1

      Jebidiah will be sorely missed.

      In my case it's more "the one that sorely missed Jebidiah will be sorely missed".

      --
      Elok
    3. Re:Look like one of my Kerbal mission... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jebidiah will be sorely missed.

      In my case it's more "the one that sorely missed Jebidiah will be sorely missed".

      In Soviet Russia sorely missed Jebdiah will sorely miss YOU.

  10. Slashdot the former tech and science site... by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 0

    >> Orbital tracking indicated the re-entry took place at 2:20 UTC

    "...or about 11 hours ago."

  11. Kerbal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't read this story the same way since playing kerbal space program... Why didn't it have a parachute and some winglets?

  12. What about the east coast? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Heh, west coast of Chile. As if there was another on the east side of the country....

    1. Re: What about the east coast? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, it is "News for Gringo nerds"

  13. Interesting turn of events. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jennifer Garner has been spotted riding what was apparently suitcase luge near the launch site.

  14. Still going... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some of them probably weigh around 400 pounds or more in fact.

    I landed on one of them! Bounced back to orbit! Still going!

    - Progress M-27M

  15. Russian probe pulled out a V'Ger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and attempted to communicate with whales during its descent.

  16. Heisenberg! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Quote: "Its orbital speed and location were not known with perfect precision".

    Of course not. The Uncertainty Principle!

  17. KSP by goodmanj · · Score: 1

    Yeah, a lot of people are struggling to cope with the new aerodynamics model in Kerbal Space Program 1.0.