UPDATE: a later statement from NASA below says N. Pacific off the U.S. West coast, teleconference scheduled. See below.
NASA confirms that the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) has entered Earth’s atmosphere and burned/broken up. Some Twitter reports say debris was seen over eastern Canada, but unconfirmed as of this writing. No video or photos of re-entry yet. This just in from Spaceflightnow.com
0720 GMT (3:20 a.m. EDT)
RE-ENTRY CONFIRMED. The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, launched from the shuttle Discovery in 1991 to begin a new era of studying the Earth’s environment from space, has fallen from orbit.
But NASA still doesn’t know exactly when or where the re-entry happened.
“NASA’s decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite fell back to Earth between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 23 and 1:09 a.m. EDT Sept. 24. The satellite was passing eastward over Canada and Africa as well as vast portions of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans during that period. The precise re-entry time and location are not yet known with certainty,” the space agency says.
Natural processes caused the large spacecraft’s orbital altitude to gradually lower over time, finally tumbling into the atmosphere today where it burned up. It had spent 7,316 days in space.
NASA expected 26 fragments of the satellite would survive the superhot re-entry and hit the ground, such as titanium fuel tanks, antenna structures and beryllium brackets. The combined mass of the pieces was predicted to be 1,173 pounds (532 kg).
Authorities urge anyone finding the satellite pieces to avoid touching the objects and contact local officials.
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Twitter went crazy with all sorts of junk and fake reports tonight, I thought this was was the most troubling/amusing:
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UPDATE: Statement from NASA
NASA’s decommissioned Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite fell back to Earth between 11:23 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 23 and 1:09 a.m. EDT Sept. 24. The Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California said the satellite entered the atmosphere over the North Pacific Ocean, off the west coast of the United States. The precise re-entry time and location of any debris impacts are still being determined. NASA is not aware of any reports of injury or property damage.
This is your source for official information on the re-entry of UARS. All information posted here has been verified with a government agency or law enforcement.
NASA will conduct a media telecon at 2 p.m. ET to discuss the re-entry. The telecon will be streamed live at www.nasa.gov/newsaudio.
UPDATE2: From the NASA teleconference via spaceflightnow.com
Nick Johnson, chief scientist with NASA’s Orbital Debris Program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, says the space agency has received “no credible” reports of observers seeing the UARS re-entry. Officials think the satellite most likely fell into atmosphere over the open Pacific Ocean around 12 a.m. EDT (0400 GMT) and the surviving debris would have landed in the sea before reaching North America.
An odd report on ABC (American BC) that UARS landed near Africa seems unlikely. I listened to the NASA phone conference at 2pm EST today which is well worth a listen (probably now up on the web somewhere or at 866-516-0666 both may be clogged for awhile). From a quite detailed discussion of likely scenarios during this phone conference the UARS probably de-orbitted in the Pacific somewhere near the last JSpOC prediction point at sometime around 0416Z Sept 24. The predicted point was 31N and (219E?) which I think is actually near 140W which is about 1350 miles due west of Tijuana, Mexico (about half way between LA and Hawaii). This is likely because no one in the Pacific NW was able to “see” the next pass over that area (ie- it went down before reaching Seattle). Since no one yet has made noises of seeing flaming debris over head in the NW we can probably assume that the large chunks went into the drink before that deadline. I believe the prediction was probably good to +/- 10 minutes because the NASA fellow on the broadcast indicated that by +10 minutes the footprint would start to be over land in Canada.
NASA does not do orbital predictions or monitoring. DoD and specifically JSpOC (AF Joint Space Operations Center – Vandenburg) and Spasur (Space Surveillance Network) do this. I suspect they know where every piece of junk hardball size and bigger is. I also suspect they will not be telling us much about that capability anytime soon. NASA works very closely with them on a regular basis. Stuff falls out of the sky daily and big stuff falls out weekly. NASA said that this is the first very large NASA item to come out in the last 30 years.
We should know more soon. But if it all did go into the drink and no ships or airlines saw it, we may not really ever know.
Bernie
Silliest media response yet. Some reader video’d a jet plane and sent it in to the UK Telegraph claiming it was a satellite trail. The Telegraph believed it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8786789/Nasa-satellite-possibly-sighted-as-it-fell-to-earth.html
As a layman in this field, may I ask why we should a) avoid touching the parts, and b) what makes them so immense precious to account for raising a worldwide hell and all the money spent to collect those burnt out and torn objects?
It’s really a mystery for me.
SRB says:
September 24, 2011 at 8:46 am
I loved the report on the BBC yesterday.
NASA say the debris is more likely to fall in the sea than on land.
FFS.
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My math says about 3:1 for ocean
Exactly my point. As if the MSM needs to “report” that NASA, in its wisdom, announces that there is more sea than land.
I didn’t get any space junk but we did have a hot air balloon land in the back yard a couple of hours ago.
That doesn’t happen every day.
Suspect is hatless….repeat hatless ( anyone who watches the simpsons will know what I mean….)
New video allegedly of the UARS satellite by French photographer/astronomer Thierry Legault.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7382163n&tag=pop;videos
Truth be told, and we confront it when, tragedy occurs in space, scientists predict 100 years into the future, we realise, we just don’t know. We blame NASA when they don’t know but we are no different than believers of climo-apocalypse. We believe that THEY know and that’s good enough to lay blame.
NASA can target a satellite within 80 miles of it’s target a billion miles away. If anyone want’s to show their expertise in a time of shrinking budgets it would be NASA. They’ve done their best and like advancements since UARS was launched, with technological innovation when it becomes available, they will improve. We can’t mandate those advances by an act of congress or parliament, but, we can welcome them once they arrive.
In the future we will look back at this, as those before us look at Skylab, smile, shake our heads and say ‘remember when…’ realising that need is the spur of innovation.
“This video of UARS (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite) has been taken from Northern France (Dunkerque) on September 15th 2011 between 04:42:14 and 04:44:02 UTC. Distance to observer: 316 km. Altitude of the satellite: 252 km. Angular speed at culmination: 1.36°/s. The speed of the sequence is accelerated two times with regard to real time (20 fps vs 10 fps). The satellite is tumbling, perhaps because of a collision with satellite debris a few years ago. ”
http://legault.perso.sfr.fr/uars_110915.html
petermue says:
September 24, 2011 at 4:39 pm
The most charitable reason I can think of is that by trying to make everyone think it’s dangerous it will keep people away from other satellites with really dangerous stuff, e.g. RTGs or hydrazine fuel tanks. We dropped a RTG on Canada in 1978. I suspect the diplomatic traffic may not have been very diplomatic that day.
Next is that they may not want certain alloys, optics, and other items of tactical value from falling into bad hands (whoever is playing the USSR role at the moment).
Last is that homeless ETs moved in for a while and believe me, you don’t want to touch ET’s cooties!
Found it:
http://www.wimp.com/nasasatellite/
Conspiracy theorists can crawl out from under their rocks. NASA now says UARS landed in the SOUTH Pacific, not the North Pacific as they originally said, with pieces perhaps landing in Canada. It’s all in the ocean bottom.
http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-satellite-fell-south-pacific-not-canada-201709293.html
Keith that was HILLARIOUS!!!!
all the trillions of dollars we have given to NASA since 1961 and the best they can do is estimate it will enter the atmosphere between friday and some time today? and it’s projected landing is somewhere over the north pacific or asia or africa; somewhere around there give or take a couple of thousand miles. it’s duty was to check the earth and it’s atmosphere. Let me tell you, the planet is O.K. it’s the people who are screwed up. everything thing we have was here long before we were. iron- wood-water-meat-fish-porkand chicken and many more items.Save the planet? the planet doesn’t need to be saved. when we all are gone , the planet is going to save itself. the buildings will rot and fall. so will all the dams so water can get back to flowing where it had been since who knows when. there’ll be trees growing on Broadway in NYC right past wall street and ivy and weeds and free wild animals will be resting on the floor of the stock exchange. every trace of man will be gone, except maybe plastic. maybe that’s why we were here! the earth couldn’t produce plastic. it had all the ingredients ; but it needed machines and people to run the machines. in a couple of thousand years life from another galaxy, far far away will land on earth and find zillions of plastic bottles, some empty and some full. they might say ” this must be what they worshipped and held sacred. this is all over the planet. COCA_COLA must have been their god as there is more of it than all the rest. and who could this Mc Donald be? was in above or under Burger the King. very strange planet we have landed on.. XRBORZ give me that utensil that says PEPSI and has a liquid of some kind in it. XRBORZ gives it to the leader who figures out that if you turn this blue disc on top bubbles rise inside the vessel. the leader seeing this , drops the vessel and runs a short distance away.telling his companions” just before the bubbles came, i heard a HISS. thinking it harmful i dropped it and ran.but nothing happened except a brown liquid shot out of it’s opening when i dropped it.” XRBORZ bring me another one of those vessels. taking it he twisted the blue disc off, heard the hiss, then saw the bubbles, and nothing HAPPENED!!! the leader, who we shall cal george , smelt the brown liquid, swet smelling he said but the bubbles make my nose itch. taking a small portion and swishing it around in his mouth then swallowed a drop said, hey, this crap ain’y bad a drank the whole vessel which resulted in a loud noise to come out of his mouth. a little shaken by the noise he said” this stuff even tastes good when the noise came out of my mouth. but alas it burned a little in great quantity i had. look around all of you and see what else you find. maybe there is something that will allow us to drink this liquid without the burning feeling.” as the people were looking around, george’s wife said” come to the ship george and take for your nap.” Nap!! i can’t sleep now, i have a feeling that won’t let me stand still, no less sleep! finding a vessel of COCA-COLA george twisted the red disc, heard the Hiss , saw the bubbles and thought ‘ this is doing the same thing that PEPSI vessel did'” he drank a bit deemed it good and chugged the vessel. bingo another noise from his mother. this one tasted a little different than the first. i wonder why? meanwhile XRBORZ brought a vesel that looked different it’s contents were lighter in color. george twisted the disc on top , smelled a bit put a drop on his tongue and claimed this is a little bit sweet but there was no Hiss nor bubbles inside the vessel. taking a sip he said ” this didn’t burn as much as the first 2 maybe, just maybe if i put some of this into that vessel with the red disc it will make it less burning.” so george poured some of the no bubbles liquid into the vessel with the red disc drank some and said it was less burning . he poured some more liquid into the bubbles and drank it all.” BOY that was smooth george claimed. XRBORZ what is that new liquid you found? i don’t know george but it says BACCARDI. well george said find more and bring more COCA COLA after about 3 hours of drinking this mixture with his crew who had found much more of this BACCARDI, they spent the afternoon laughing and telling stories. about an hour after this george’s wife called out” george, you meal is ready to consume” SHUT UP BITCH” george yelled can’t a guy who traveled 3 billion light years have a little fun with his friends???? soon george decided he didn’t really need the liquid with the bubbles. and drank the BACCARDI right out of the vessel along with other vessels the men found with letters on the vessels that said DEWERS and CANADIAN VO and CUERVO among many more. yep george said, “i can see us staying here for a long long time. the earth groaned NOT AGAIN
sorry for the spelling. and all due respect to george carlin, from which this tale has stolen some of his lines throughout his long and hillarious career. also thanks to mr. cahill on facebook who put this in my head yesterday.