News UARS about to fall from the sky

[agentgonzo]

Latest chart of decreasing altitude. (and prediction)

(I can't embed the image in the post because it's stupid)

 

[RisingFury]

According to that graph, in the day the satellite falls from 175 km altitude to 150 km altitude (the day before reentry), it will be losing energy at 8000 W! That comes up to be about 1 Newton of drag.

 

[bdore]

Considering the world population, I would have thought that 1 in 3,200 is fairly high. For example it is 2 people in a small village.

I think it's the odds of it hitting ANY person, or strike and cause damage to property. I think the odds of it hitting an individual is in the trillions. I have a better chance of visiting Mars than getting hit by this satellite.

 

[agentgonzo]

Considering the world population, I would have thought that 1 in 3,200 is fairly high. For example it is 2 people in a small village.

I'm dubious about the 3,200 figure. I imagine that they came up with it by calculating (number of people between 57°N and 57°S) * (area hit by UARS when it lands) / (area between 57°N and 57°S).

Given that the population tends to be clumped (in cities) etc then this above naive calculation is an over-estimation.

Mathematically speaking, I imagine they calculated the expection(number of people to be hit) = 1/3200 rather than probability(at least 1 person gets hit).

 

[astrosammy]

NASA:

As of Sept. 15, 2011, the orbit of UARS was 143 mi by 158 mi (230 km by 255 km). Re-entry is expected Sept. 24, plus or minus a day.

 

[NukeET]

...As you see in my signature, I've created a scenario with the newest orbital elements of UARS....

Thank you for the scenario! I was just about to post a question about getting the orbital elements translated into a scenario.


How's this for synchronicity?

The first time i ran astrosammy's scenario, my mp3 playlist started playing "Re-entry" from In the Shadow of the Moon soundtrack.

 

[astrosammy]

Well, I use [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2617"]Scenario Editor TLE[/ame] to import the elements and go to the Orbit page of scenario editor and copy those elements into the scenario file. A plugin may do it a bit more accurate, but I don't have the time for that currently.

 

[NukeET]

Well, I use Scenario Editor TLE to import the elements and go to the Orbit page of scenario editor and copy those elements into the scenario file. A plugin may do it a bit more accurate, but I don't have the time for that currently.

I was comparing the scenario's results against the Heavens-Above web site and the scenario seemed to be rather accurate.

 

[Lucy]

If it lands in my back yard, my children and I will spend the next year returning it to the heavens atop some kind of liquid rocket designed to spread joy and delight into the hearts of humans everywhere by advancing spaceflight in some fashion.

Either that, or it'll spread joy and delight (and flames) to my neighbours' houses when it spirals out of control and smashes through some windows...

 

[orb]

SPACE.com: Huge Defunct Satellite Will Fall to Earth Around Sept. 24, NASA Says

 

[Urwumpe]

I bet it will crash in southern Germany, right on the Octoberfest, injuring nobody but smashing a keg of beer, which is much worse.

 

[Sky Captain]

A keg full of beer wasted - that's pretty much End of the World.

 

[Scav]

That IS tantamount to high crime. Especially in places like Ireland and Scotland.

 

[Ghostrider]

Beerkegicide... This means WAR!

 

[astrosammy]

:lol:

And here's a new update from NASA.

As of Sept. 16, 2011, the orbit of UARS was 140 mi by 155 mi (225 km by 250 km). Re-entry is expected Sept. 23, plus or minus a day. The re-entry of UARS is advancing because of a sharp increase in solar activity since the beginning of this week.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Looks like my last simulation in Orbiter was not that wrong.



This is where I ended up in Orbiter:

I ran it and wound up crashing near Moscow, Russia, also on the 24th.

Take cover! :hide:

 

[Notebook]

BBC has woke up:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14957549

Sorry about that, the BBC used to be good.

N.

 

[NukeET]

Looks like my last simulation in Orbiter was not that wrong.

I ran it and wound up crashing near Moscow, Russia, also on the 24th.

My first run showed Australia getting hammered again...SW of Brisbane.

 

[astrosammy]

Update #4
Sun, 18 Sep 2011 06:12:09 PM GMT+0200

As of Sept. 18, 2011, the orbit of UARS was 133 mi by 149 mi (215 km by 240 km). Re-entry is expected Sept. 23, plus or minus a day.

I'll update the elements and do another test run now...

BTW, nice blog, NukeET.

 

[orb]

NASASpaceflight: NASA managers discuss fragmentation risks as UARS heads back to Earth

CBS News Space: NASA tracks falling science satellite, says risk to public minimal