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The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret.
“Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation,” said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause.”
Ring up Homeland Security. They’re in charge of making the whole world safe – aren’t they?
That brings to mind a project which absolutely no one will have any interest in researching, funding or implementing until it has already become a crisis (Which, to borrow J. Pournelle’s famous phrase, is Real Soon Now): decommissioning, deorbiting and disposing of orbital flotsam and jetsam…
Bor-ring! – until the first disaster. Then, ten million Chickens Little pop up.
Too bad we don’t have something like a space shuttle to go up and fix it.
Ring up Homeland Insecurity? Ring up the Chinese. They’ll take care of it for you.
Can you imagine the cost difference if the Pentagon gold toilet seat-crowd gets the job?
Andromeda Strain anyone?
“Ring up Homeland Security. They’re in charge of making the whole world safe – aren’t they?”
Only if it benefits them, not the public at large.
Ahh just send Clint Eastwood, Donnald Sutherland, James Garner, and Tommy Lee Jones after it. They will figure out it’s true mission and send it to the moon…
Do you think they’re workin’ the folks at TRW overtime while they’re a whuppin’ and a beatin’ em ?? I guess them folks picked a bad day to stop sniffin’ glue.
Same Satellite?
Plotting the Rocky Re-Entry of NASA’s Largest Satellite
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 10:30 am ET
20 May 2002
NASA is studying what may happen when the agency’s largest satellite, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), makes an uncontrolled re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere about a decade from now.
The agency will formally decommission the Earth observing spacecraft in 2002-2003. Then, depending on the whims of solar winds, the closed-for-business UARS could remain in orbit for about 10 years. UARS is the largest NASA satellite in the agency’s inventory that may be brought down via an uncontrolled reentry.
Dropped off in Earth orbit by a space shuttle crew in September 1991, UARS continues to provide research data on processes within the top most layers of Earth’s atmosphere. For example, the satellite has been busy for years delving into the chemistry of ozone production and depletion. This observatory — weighing in at around 5.5 tons (5,670 kilograms) — comes replete with grapple fixture for astronauts to pluck the craft from space.
However, current plans call for the spacecraft to reenter the atmosphere without a controlled descent.
A NASA Goddard Space Flight Center study of how UARS will bust apart found the spacecraft “non-compliant” with the agency’s safety standard on falling satellites. That guideline calls for surviving debris of an uncontrolled spacecraft re-entry to produce a risk to ground population no greater than one in 10,000. The UARS firefall yields chunks of junk beyond acceptable limits of the NASA standard.
Another follow-on assessment was done, offering a higher-fidelity understanding of what is in the offing once UARS plunges to Earth.
The conclusion is that the vintage UARS, due to the mass, size, and material properties of some of the components, there is increased possibility of hardware items surviving atmospheric re-entry and posing a safety risk to the ground population.
Hardware survivors
William Rochelle, manager of the Advanced Flight Section at Lockheed Martin Space Operations in Houston, Texas, along with cooperative engineer, Jeremiah Marichalar, both reviewed the future re-entry of UARS.
The orbital debris experts used the Object Re-entry Survival Analysis Tool (ORSAT), a computer model developed at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) and Lockheed Martin Space Operations. Their findings are reported in a current issue of Orbital Debris Quarterly News, a publication of NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office.
Using the ORSAT tool, approximately 160 UARS components were analyzed. Twelve types of components (for a total of 26 objects, accounting for multiple components) were found to survive, Rochelle and Marichalar report.
The surviving leftovers include: Seven objects made of titanium, two of beryllium, two of stainless steel, and one very large — 348 pound (158 kilogram) — object made of aluminum. Titanium, steel, and beryllium tend to have higher survival tendencies due to the high melting temperatures of these materials, Rochelle and Marichalar note.
In total, the 26 surviving UARS objects add up to 1,170 pounds (532 kilograms) of Earth-smacking wreckage.
Big oceansmall risk
The ORSAT analysis found that the fall of UARS will create a debris footprint on Earth of nearly 490 miles (788 kilometers) in length. The risk to any Earth dweller becoming a casualty by getting knocked in the noggin with UARS flotsam is one in 3,560.
Given that Earth’s surface is three-quarters covered in water, the chances of UARS debris striking anybody are small, said William Ailor, Director of the Center for Orbital and Re-entry Debris studies at The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California. “We’ve had spacecraft of this size come in over time,” he said.
“We’ve been at this for 40 years. As far as we know, there’s only one case of a lady in Oklahoma being brushed by a piece of debris. You have to think that the risks are small. When you compute the risks they do turn out to be very small. They are not zero though. So there’s always a very small chance that someone on the planet will be tagged by one of these things,” Ailor said.
“In this case, it’s a risk that NASA apparently has weighed and felt is worth taking,” Ailor told SPACE.com.
Ailor said that spacecraft designers are beginning to look at what kinds of materials do and don’t survive re-entry. By incorporating certain materials and better design of future satellites, clutter that makes it down to Earth’s surface should be minimized, he said.
Kinda like biodegradable things in a landfill, minus the styrofoam ?
There’s only one thing to do…
get the Chinese to shoot it down.
The cause for concern is not so much as the materials that make up the crafts construction as it is what powers the craft. Large solar panels on low orbiting satellites make them rather easy to track, even by amature astronomers. Satellite finding, observing and tracking is a hobby unto itself. Is the satellite powered by RTG’s? The Soviets dropped one of these onto Great Slave Lake in Canada’s north a number of years ago. The lake was frozen over making it possible to recover the nuclear material. This was done at a great expense to the Canadian tax payers since the Soviets refused to acknowledge that it was one of their satellites.
Ah, this is a non-story. The satellite will either burn up in the atmosphere—or crash into the ocean. The chance of it actually hitting anything or anyone is minute.
#12 UltrasmallNick –
I hope you realize that you just increased your personal chances of being the one getting hit by a gazillion.
Would be interesting to watch re-entry from a distance , Would be painless if TAGGED.
“Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation,”
Great.
That house that was suppose to drop on Bush’s head is 7 years late.
I’ve seen one of these things come down, and it was pretty showy.
#17. Me too, the remnants of that FY-1C satellite the Chine blew up last year. Here in Auckland, it looked like a meteor but a lot slower.
Reminds me of an episode of Gilligan’s Island…you know, the one where the satellite crashed onto the Island and Gilligan thought it was a robot? then Locke told Sayid to wire it up as a tool to…oh never mind…
Heh, its probly one of those SDI things with the lazer beams, no biggie
I was just watching a fox news update om the so called SpySat , They are saying that it will re-enter within next two weeks , They put this Old HACK on the interview — KT Mcfarland a FMR senior Pentagon official.
The lies she spewed were almost comical .
1# They say this is a SpySat that was launched in 2006 and it is the size of a school bus, Untrue : Even the Hubble space telescope is barely that big without its panels. Only a KillerSat would need that size for its offensive package.
2# She also said not to worry it will all burn up during re-entry , Untrue : Wreckage from the doomed space shuttle not only covered 3 states , but numbered in the thousands , they are still finding pieces to this day .
My fellow readers , I suggest you all invest in titanium hardhats very quickly.
ahhhhhhhhh a disaster what if it hit our city. our lives r at stake. why wont they send a space shuttel and fix it.
Better listen to this song …. “SATELLITE HOP”
Teaches you a life-saving, debris-dodging aerobic civil defense exercise called, “S.P.L.A.T.”, the “SATELLITE PROTECTIVE LEAPING AVOIDANCE TECHNIQUE”
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=170140
(please wear a helmet, or a titanium umbrella)
HAY I HAVE AN IDEAL BUT NO ONE WON’T LISTEN TO ME. MY IDEAL IS WAS TO HAVE TWO SHIPS SIDE BY SIDE. NOT RIGHT BESIDE EACH OTHER BUT CLOSE TO EACH OTHER. MAKE A BAG LIKE THAT WOULD HOLD IT AND PUSH THE SATELITE AWAY FROM EARTH. MAKE THE BAG LIKE TOOL OUT OF STEEL. PUT ONE PART OF THE BAG ON ONE ROCKET AND THE OTHER PART ON THE OTHER ROCKET. I HAVE LAYOUT OF I THINK IT SHOULD BE. I’M NOT THAT GOOD OF A DRAWER BUT IT GOOD THAT YOU WOULD UNDERSTAND IT.
JMYERS2007, Dude , Your very advanced as far as quantum physics .
I think that NASA would have a place for you ,
Perhaps in the cafeteria keeping the salad bar supplied with croutons.
Those classified spy satellites are absolutely HUGE. Not many folks know this but the Space Shuttle’s original purpose was to loft very large spy satellites into orbit, not to help out mankind’s thirst for science.
The modern keyhole satellite is the size of the Hubble Space Telescope.
When it burns up in the atmosphere, it will make a heck of a spectacle.
Odds are that the shuttle will land in the ocean. If it takes up 75% of the earth, then what are the chances that it will land on the land? 1 out of 2, but the probability is not equally likely, because the ocean is much bigger than the land.
p.s-I dont understand why someone would make a big joke out of this situation! If this satellite lands somewhere other than than the us, there could be a war! What ignorance!
JUS FACE iT.. WERE G0NNA DiE LOL…BUT NO iT”S PROBABLY GONNA LAND iN THE OCEAN BUT DO U EVER WONDER WHAT THAT MAY CAUSE LiKE A TSUNAMi OR SOMETHING LETS JUST HOPE iT LANDS SOME WHERE WERE NOBODY GETS HURT.. OR ON THE OTHER HALF WERE TiTANiUM HATS…
This certainly is no laughing matter. They had a news conference on C-span the other night – talking about if it hit earth that FEMA and other organizations would be called in to help — but no evaucation would be ordered! This was quite disturbing to me! We all know what a good job FEMA does.
They are even saying it could hit another continent which certainly could cause war with that country.
The fact that they are not sure if they can hit it is terribly worrisome, plus the fact they are putting plans into action in case it does hit us — tells me it probably will. They just are not telling us everything.
If Lockheed Martin has the ability to produce these things, it certainly looks like they could find a way to get them back to earth in case of failure that would be safe.
Just glad I’m a Christian and I’m ready to go.
I pray for everyone’s protection.
Well what do you know….. Now it’s hazardous fuel
frozen in the tanks that is causing our little SDI exhibition. Wouldn’t you think that fuel frozen in a reentry would thaw to the point of explosion. I think that the NSA doesn’t want to chance even the smallest chunk of this bird getting into the wrong hands. Not a bad reason ………