UARS has come to Earth, re-entering the atmosphere at 11:23 pm (Eastern) last night over the Pacific Ocean.
Aerospace Corporation has further refined its prediction for the deorbit of UARS. The window now goes from 11 pm to 3 am tonight, with the only land areas at risk being Canada, Africa, and Australia.
NASA now says re-entry will be between 11:45 and 12:45 am (Eastern), putting only Canada and Africa in the satellite’s path.
The most recent prediction now says that the UARS satellite will come down tonight between 9 pm and 3 am Eastern time, during one of four orbits, all of which pass over North America, Europe, and Africa. One orbit also passes over Australia.
The crash time of the UARS climate satellite has now been updated to a window lasting from 6 pm (Eastern) to 4 am (Eastern) tonight.
According to the map at the link, the U.S., Europe, Africa, and Middle East are all potential crash sites.
Even if UARS misses you today, don’t relax! A second large satellite, the 2.4 ton ROSAT X-Ray space telescope, is going to rain debris down late in October or early November.
On its ROSAT website, DLR estimates that “up to 30 individual debris items with a total mass of up to 1.6 tonnes might reach the surface of the Earth. The X-ray optical system, with its mirrors and a mechanical support structure made of carbon-fibre reinforced composite – or at least a part of it – could be the heaviest single component to reach the ground.”
The forecast of when and where the climate satellite UARS will re-enter the atmosphere has been narrowed to the afternoon/evening of Friday, September 23.
Want to know where and when the six ton UARS satellite will hit the Earth this week? The Aerospace Corporation has it mapped!
The sky is falling: The six-ton climate satellite UARS is now expected to crash to Earth within a week.
A defunct seven-ton NASA climate satellite is about to fall to Earth.
The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, is expected to come down in late September or early October, the space agency said today in an advisory. “Although the spacecraft will break into pieces during re-entry, not all of it will burn up in the atmosphere,” NASA said.
