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Re: (meteorobs) FW: Texas-Oklahoma re-entry
> ... an object that size will be completely
> incinerated during it's travel through the atmosphere. Only
> the very largest man made objects (Skylab, MIR, etc) will have
> pieces survive to the ground. So there was no danger.
In fact, somewhat smaller pieces can survive re-entry. It depends
upon their composition and shape. In January 1997 a cylindrical
tank from an upper stage of a Delta launch vehicle (which had
launched the MSX satellite) landed about 50 meters (150 feet) from
a farmhouse just outside of Georgetown, Texas (about 50 km/30
miles) north of here. A friend and his wife went to see it. Its
weight was estimated at a few hundred kilograms (or 2.2 times as
many pounds). It was mostly intact, though deformed by its impact
with the ground. A smaller, spherical tank on the same re-entry
landed farther south, east of San Antonio, Texas. It was a while
before the US government accepted/admitted the fact that it was
what the Georgetown object was, but after they did they (possibly
the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization -- which has a Web site)
came and hauled the large tank away, and the last I heard it was
on display in front of a building in southern California (maybe
El Segundo?). Earlier this year pieces from a similar re-entry
landed in South Africa. It was mentioned in a story on the Space
Today site:
http://www.flatoday.com/space/explore/stories/2000a/050300a.htm
Note the final sentence,
] "Although no one had been hurt by these objects in the last 40
] years, the U.S. government would compensate anyone who is
] struck by the objects," Johnson was quoted as telling South
] Africa's 702 radio station.
There's a threaded discussion of that report on SeeSat beginning
with:
http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/May-2000/0031.html
Of course roughly 70 percent of such surviving debris objects
splash down in an ocean, and the majority of the rest lands on
uninhabited land. Roughly half would occur in the daytime. Of
course all of them make excellent fireballs if they are observed
by anyone, especially the ones at night.
There's considerable discussion of the 1997 "re-entry over Texas"
on the SeeSat mailing list archive in January and February of
that year:
http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/Jan-1997/
http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/Feb-1997/
Most of the message subjects include the phrase "re-entry over
Texas"; some others mention "96-24B" or "23852" or "MSX" or any
combination of those. Unfortunately, links to TV news reports
and other things may not work any longer.
Now, as to the question of whether something went wrong with the
Oct. 13 Russian launch, I think that the answer is probably not --
but I don't know for sure. The three Glonass satellites launched
that day are now in circular orbits somewhat higher than 19,000
km, which is about right, I believe (more or less similar to US
GPS satellites, of which Glonass are analogues). I do wonder if
any fragments of the re-entering pieces reached the ground.
By the way, here's a brief report of re-entry of Proton objects
over India earlier this year:
http://www2.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/May-2000/0005.html
One thing SeeSat and Meteorobs have in common is fireball reports!
Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexasdot edu - Austin, Texas, USA
http://wwwvms.utexasdot edu/~ecannon/meteorlinks.html
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