China junk duck and cover 43N to 43 S [Archive]

CONSO

7th Mar 2018, 03:05

?Uncontrolled? Space Station To Crash In Early April, Experts Say « CBS Denver (http://denver.cbslocal.com/2018/03/06/space-station-crash-earth-date-time-location/)

China’s government reportedly lost control of their space lab, Tiangong-1, in June of 2016 and initially announced that the station would crash back to Earth in late 2017. That prediction was later revised to March 2018 after other international space agencies realized China had lost contact with the lab and began tracking its course.
The ESA has now released a new window (http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2018/01/12/tiangong-1-reentry-updates/) for Tiangong-1’s eventual crash landing. Scientists believe the station will hit Earth between March 29 and April 9. The space agency admitted however, they won’t be able to pin down an exact date because of the space lab’s out-of-control route. “At no time will a precise time/location prediction from ESA be possible,” the ESA wrote on their blog.
Scientists also haven’t been able to narrow down the crash zone, which is predicted to be between the 43° North and 43° South latitudes. That massive section of the planet includes parts of every inhabited continent on Earth. “Even a couple of days before it re-enters we probably won’t know better than six or seven hours, plus or minus, when it’s going to come down,” Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/21/chinas-tiangong-1-space-station-out-of-control-crash-to-earth) in 2016.

wiggy

7th Mar 2018, 13:20

Ah, Skylab redux.....anyone taking bets on Esperance?

lomapaseo

7th Mar 2018, 14:32

Will any pieces that are recovered by nearby residents have any collector value?

Lonewolf_50

7th Mar 2018, 14:51

TFOA* has been replaced with TFFS.

(Things Falling Off Aircraft)

msbbarratt

11th Mar 2018, 07:11

Will any pieces that are recovered by nearby residents have any collector value?

Who knows, but easily tested with EBay...

HHornet

11th Mar 2018, 08:25

If bits of this go through my house roof, it is going to be an interesting insurance form to fill in. Am I insured for this?

Heathrow Harry

11th Mar 2018, 08:30

well if you ask your insurance company they tell you NO and they'll make a note in their records that you are planning to install a great big magnet to ensure a hit and a claim.................

jolihokistix

11th Mar 2018, 10:25

"Toxic or corrosive"? What power source does it have?

Capot

11th Mar 2018, 11:16

If you ask your insurance company they, using that peculiar twisted reasoning that they use, will declare you a high risk client because you were worried enough to call them about it, and load your premium as well as alerting all the other companies that you are riskier than average. And that's before they come to look for the magnet.

infrequentflyer789

11th Mar 2018, 11:39

"Toxic or corrosive"? What power source does it have?

Not so much the power source as the fuel, hydrazine is a good bet for anything in space, the tanks may well survive reentry and they won't be empty because there was at least enough for a controlled de-orbit burn before they lost command link. Hydrazine is of course toxic and corrosive and generally worth avoiding.

jolihokistix

11th Mar 2018, 13:22

Thank you infrequentflyer. Just done some remedial reading about it.

donotdespisethesnake

11th Mar 2018, 13:49

What are the odds of anything significant in size surviving re-entry?

Very high, in fact almost certain some parts will reach the surface, assuming by significant size you mean large enough to cause an injury.

But the chances of anything hitting people, buildings, cars etc are astronomically low. I mean, it might make a hole in some farmers field...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=TvJVNyyEMQY

Nemrytter

11th Mar 2018, 15:13

What are the odds of anything significant in size surviving re-entry?Fairly high. The odds of those pieces causing any trouble, however, is fairly low. Planet Earth is a big place (regardless of what Herr Trump says) and a space station is relatively small. Statistics plays against anyone or anything [aside from desert/sea] being hit by by this debris.

jolihokistix

11th Mar 2018, 15:34

Chinese roulette, but relatively smaller than the Russian and US ones that came down some years ago.

ExXB

11th Mar 2018, 15:45

If bits of this go through my house roof, it is going to be an interesting insurance form to fill in. Am I insured for this?well if you ask your insurance company they tell you NO and they'll make a note in their records that you are planning to install a great big magnet to ensure a hit and a claim.................If you ask your insurance company they, using that peculiar twisted reasoning that they use, will declare you a high risk client because you were worried enough to call them about it, and load your premium as well as alerting all the other companies that you are riskier than average. And that's before they come to look for the magnet.

Or, you can have a socialised insurance like in my Canton which insures all residences in the Canton for all risks. Low premiums* combined with complete coverage.

*I also usually get a rebate each year because claims haven't kept up with the premiums.

infrequentflyer789

11th Mar 2018, 20:09

Very high, in fact almost certain some parts will reach the surface, assuming by significant size you mean large enough to cause an injury.

But the chances of anything hitting people, buildings, cars etc are astronomically low. I mean, it might make a hole in some farmers field...

Well per my earlier post, the object in that video looks a lot like a propellant tank, and if it did come from space and if it was a hydrazine tank (or if I didn't know...) then I would be staying a bit further away from it than those people are...

underfire

12th Mar 2018, 16:29

TIANGONG 1 - NORAD 37820 - 3D Online Satellite Tracking (http://www.satflare.com/track.asp?q=37820#TOP)

WingNut60

12th Mar 2018, 22:28

In the lobby of the old Carnarvon WA tracking station in the early 70's they had on display a small fuel tank that had survived re-entry.

From memory it was about 250 - 300 mm diameter and looked pretty much intact except that it was split about half way around, presumably damage from when it had hit the ground.
Not a bad effort considering that the shell thickness was probably (again from memory) only about 0.5 mm - total mass only about 0.6.kg.
Would I like to have been hit by that? No I would not.

Fluffig

13th Mar 2018, 00:19

What are the odds of anything significant in size surviving re-entry?

I was on one of the Space Shuttle Columbia's recovery team, at least one of the hydrazine tank was intact and still half full ... It was incredible that some of the items were completely burnt up, while others looked like quite shiny and new.

JanetFlight

29th Mar 2018, 23:36

E) navigation warning: Aircraft are advised that a potential hazard
may occur due to uncontrolled re-entry of tiangong-1 satellite
fragments into the earth atmosphere estimated by italian airspace
agency (asi) in a time frame btn 28th march 2018 hr 1537 and 4th
april 2018 hr 0543. According to the forecast trajectory,
tiangong-1 satellite could jeopardize the overall italian fir
south of 440000n

megan

30th Mar 2018, 00:22

Probably the biggest part of Skylab. There was one slab of thick metal also that I wouldn't want to be hit by.

http://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/sam.gibbs%40fairfaxmedia.com.au/b7d14825-2dc7-4068-8e25-ed5b4b67f127.jpg/r0_0_11067_6468_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

c_coder

30th Mar 2018, 07:24

I was on one of the Space Shuttle Columbia's recovery team, at least one of the hydrazine tank was intact and still half full ... It was incredible that some of the items were completely burnt up, while others looked like quite shiny and new.

Thats interesting. There is a heat shield design which uses liquid water to dispose of heat at the back of a heat shield. A pressure relief valve keeps the vaporisation temperature higher than normal to ensure a lot of heat is carried away by water vapor.

So the half full hydrazine tank is actually working as an efficient heat shield and objects like that may be more likely to reach the ground.

wiggy

30th Mar 2018, 07:50

As of Friday AM the likes of NORAD and EASA are typically predicting re-entry for April 1st, 1030 UTC , plus or minus 15 hours........so at this stage anywhere from 43N to 43S is still at risk...

Anybody issuing enroute NOTAMS is definitely indulging in CTA.....not sure what difference a NOTAM makes anyway .......

Mr Optimistic

30th Mar 2018, 07:56

I will be cross if it hits the greenhouse.

core_dump

30th Mar 2018, 08:12

From the title, I thought this thread was going to be about the Comac C919!

Ex Cargo Clown

30th Mar 2018, 10:44

More importantly, can we track it on FR24 and get an updated METAR and TAF for where it's going to crash? ;)

EDLB

30th Mar 2018, 11:02

More importantly, can we track it on FR24 and get an updated METAR and TAF for where it's going to crash? ;)

Here you go

http://www.n2yo.com/?s=37820

wiggy

30th Mar 2018, 11:46

This lot are normally pretty good:

Tiangong-1 Reentry | The Aerospace Corporation (http://www.aerospace.org/cords/reentry-predictions/tiangong-1-reentry/)

lomapaseo

30th Mar 2018, 13:22

Is there any kind of betting pool on a more exact zone of debris reaching earth?

What kind of odds are given for betting against an expected zone vs confirmed debris in that zone?

I'm willing to bet a fiver that ten cumulative pounds of confirmed debris will be found within 1000 miles from me. Who will carry that bet?

Capn Bloggs

30th Mar 2018, 13:50

While we're waiting...

HOW COMMON IS SPACE DEBRIS?

Debris from satellites, space launches and the International Space Station enters the atmosphere every few months, but only one person is known to have been hit by any of it: American woman Lottie Williams, who was struck but not injured by a falling piece of a US Delta II rocket while exercising in an Oklahoma park in 1997.

Most famously, America’s 77-tonne Skylab crashed through the atmosphere in 1979, spreading pieces of wreckage near the southwestern Australia city of Perth — and we (The Australians) fined the US $400 for littering.

Balladonia Hotel Motel - our story

Just like the local area, the Balladonia Hotel Motel also has an interesting past. Purchased by the Prendiville family in 1965, we've been going from strength to strength for more than 45 years. We started from pretty humble beginnings but we've grown into a well known tourist hub offering everything from four star accommodation through to backpacker's dongas.

Skylab and its fiery re-entry

Back in the late 1970's Balladonia was thrust into the international spotlight. In July, the world was captivated by the plight of a wayward NASA space station called Skylab. For weeks there was a lot of speculation about where it would come crashing to earth. NASA scientists predicted South Africa but in the early morning of July 13, 1979 they were proved wrong. On the centenary of Balladonia's settlement, fiery pieces of Skylab landed around the grounds of our hotel prompting a call by then president Jimmy Carter to apologise for the mess!

Timmy Tomkins

30th Mar 2018, 14:40

I will be cross if it hits the greenhouse.

Help I hadn't thought of that; me prize marrows!

plt radioman

30th Mar 2018, 23:23

India Four Two

31st Mar 2018, 04:03

What kind of odds are given for betting against an expected zone vs confirmed debris in that zone?

lomapaseo,

If I make a simplifying assumption that the final orbital track is over your house, I was surprised to see that there is an approximate 9% chance of any debris that makes it to the ground, falling within 1000 nm of you.

Ex Cargo Clown

31st Mar 2018, 04:47

Here you go

LIVE REAL TIME SATELLITE TRACKING AND PREDICTIONS: TIANGONG 1 (http://www.n2yo.com/?s=37820)

I was sort of being sarcastic

FlightlessParrot

31st Mar 2018, 05:07

I was sort of being sarcastic

I think you got out-sarked.

Ex Cargo Clown

31st Mar 2018, 05:14

I think you got out-sarked.

Don't bet on it mate ;)

crewmeal

31st Mar 2018, 05:44

Very high, in fact almost certain some parts will reach the surface, assuming by significant size you mean large enough to cause an injury.

But the chances of anything hitting people, buildings, cars etc are astronomically low. I mean, it might make a hole in some farmers field...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=TvJVNyyEMQY

Looks like a sand papered cricket ball😂

wiggy

31st Mar 2018, 06:00

April fools or not it’s still “converging” on the First....

Tiangong-1 reentry updates | Rocket Science (http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2018/03/26/tiangong-1-reentry-updates/)

Heathrow Harry

31st Mar 2018, 07:16

I will be cross if it hits the greenhouse.

remember the RR engine of a VC10 that did exactly that in Bracknell in the way back........................... :p:p:p:p

blakmax

31st Mar 2018, 11:37

Crewmeal

Looks like a sand papered cricket ball��

As an Aussie, I resemble that remark!!!!

Blakmax

Prober

31st Mar 2018, 13:34

#40
Not to mention the N1 of a 757 which landed on a pig farm in (IIRC) Wokingham. First recorded time of the fan hitting the sh1t.:{
Prober

sb_sfo

31st Mar 2018, 14:08

cavuman1

31st Mar 2018, 21:17

g=GM/r2

Login (http://www.heavens-above.com/login.aspx)

(Heavens Above)

If one takes a few moments to give a modicum of location data, one is rewarded with the current ground track of Tiangong-1. Here in Cincinnati, it seems as if the "Heavenly Palace" might fall on the "Beats the Hell Out of Living in the Gutter Retirement Home" in Ohio along about the time we are sitting down for a leg of lamb Easter feast! :sad:

Should you not hear from me in the next few days, would you kindly contact my attorney? :ouch:

Thank You in Advance! :D

- Ed :E

Machinbird

1st Apr 2018, 17:16

I anticipate that the reentry will occur shortly after one of the perigee points.
As it is, the difference between perigee and apogee are narrowing gradually as the increased drag during perigee takes away more energy than the drag at apogee.
At one one of these perigee points, there just won't be an apogee and it will spiral inward and reenter.

scifi

1st Apr 2018, 17:35

As I type... It has either just landed, or likely to be 23:26 GMT tonight...

https://www.space.com/40154-chinese-space-station-crash-pacific-ocean-prediction.html

FIRESYSOK

1st Apr 2018, 18:55

Fallen Gong

Fly26

1st Apr 2018, 20:14

Maybe if anyone airborne gets a good video they could post it as it’s due to start re-entry in the next few hours....

bekolblockage

1st Apr 2018, 23:01

Looks like its going to be off the coast of Argentina. One more orbit and that'll be it...

Capn Bloggs

2nd Apr 2018, 00:29

Looks like there's plenty of life left in the old chop suey yet, still 150kms up and going like a house on fire.

The satellite-crash predictors seem to be as good as the met men...

Capn Bloggs

2nd Apr 2018, 01:23

Seems like Heavens Above is not so realtime; she's down in the South Pacific ocean.

Airbubba

2nd Apr 2018, 01:29

JFSCC reports atmospheric reentry over the South Pacific at approximately 0016Z:

https://twitter.com/18SPCS/status/980614448745406465

Airbubba

2nd Apr 2018, 01:49

A report that the reentry was northwest of Tahiti (and in daylight it appears):

https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/980616237406400518

Redlands

2nd Apr 2018, 01:53

>It re-entered the atmosphere at 08:16 GMT on Monday, astronomer Jonathan McDowell tweeted.

Dick! as is now 0253 Monday.

Airbubba

2nd Apr 2018, 01:59

>It re-entered the atmosphere at 08:16 GMT on Monday, astronomer Jonathan McDowell tweeted.

Dick! as is now 0253 Monday.

Your own time isn't so good either, it's 0153 UTC/GMT, right?

You must be quoting a journalist. ;)

This is Dr. McDowell's actual tweet:

https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/980614801717190663

jack11111

2nd Apr 2018, 02:07

According to US-StratCom, Tiangong-1 has re-entered at 00:16 UTC, Apr 02.

sms777

2nd Apr 2018, 02:09

Missed us by.........that much! :E

Machinbird

2nd Apr 2018, 03:04

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DZvNcSFW0AAxBls.jpg

I've seen pictures of the re-entry taken from the ground-reported to be from South America. Report is that the space station bounced off the atmosphere and made it to the Atlantic.
If true, I guess it just loved to fly, and shows that you can't always trust official sources.:p

lomapaseo

2nd Apr 2018, 03:09

Come the Monday morning traffic there should be a whole bunch of flat tyres on the roads around Orlando, Fl.

compressor stall

2nd Apr 2018, 03:23

That left hand pic looks odd machinbird. It looks like a fuel filled explosion, not a burning up due friction.

wiggy

2nd Apr 2018, 07:19

Agreed CS, I’ve seen a couple of debris re-entries and it looked nothing like either of those images.

Machinbird

2nd Apr 2018, 14:33

The RH picture looks like many of the bolides/meteors I've seen including the glowing wake.
The LH picture has a glowing wake leading up to what appears to be a shot of a major breakup of the spacecraft, with items that have already detached following alongside in the wake. Probably a cherry picked photo from a stream of shots.
Keep in mind that this is all occurring in a near vacuum and at tremendous (near-orbital) speeds. Any rupture of a water/waste tank, for example, would create a glowing cloud under such conditions.

Anyone who has done a lot of night flying has probably seen several bolides during the course of their careers.

Airbubba

2nd Apr 2018, 15:28

I've seen pictures of the re-entry taken from the ground-reported to be from South America. Report is that the space station bounced off the atmosphere and made it to the Atlantic.

Do you have an alleged source for those pictures? They look like scans or screen captures of photos in a book to me.

There is a lot of questionable imagery posted online these days e.g. ;):

https://twitter.com/rawlimark/status/980712792771715072

lomapaseo

2nd Apr 2018, 16:07

didn't the Ark Royal have a wooden flight deck :E

.Scott

2nd Apr 2018, 16:20

Hello Machinbird:

The first reference I find to that image is from 16 hours ago:
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TiangongAlert&src=hash

It was posted by user "Fake Astropix".
He describes himself as: Fake, misidentified & uncredited astro images! We follow cool astro types! Favourited is not endorsed! Moon landing hoax denialists & unpaid NASA shills.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DZvNcSFW0AAxBls.jpg

I've seen pictures of the re-entry taken from the ground-reported to be from South America. Report is that the space station bounced off the atmosphere and made it to the Atlantic.
If true, I guess it just loved to fly, and shows that you can't always trust official sources.:p

compressor stall

2nd Apr 2018, 16:25

Machin bird, yes the RH pic does look like a bolide of which I too have seen many and that looks nothing like the rentry of a spacecraft.

The largest spacecraft I have seen renter live is the Hayabusa probe 8 years ago. Admittedly smaller than the space station at hand but it certainly didn’t look like the explosion on the LH pic. I agree you’re talking huge speeds for the craft and that the laminar flame (propagation) speed is higher at altitude, but why is the flammable material ahead of the body? From what I have seen, the burning /vapourising substance usually trails behind the object, and doesn’t have that yellow hydrocarbon colour.

What is the source of the images?

Edit - just seen the above post that went up when I was typing this one. That would seem to answer that then.

Airbubba

2nd Apr 2018, 16:31

As the source cited above says 'More bollocks...' :=

https://twitter.com/FakeAstropix/status/980604357208170496

Now, about that F-14... :)

NWA SLF

2nd Apr 2018, 18:43

I believe that F/A18 in the F-14 on Ark Royal pic had gone through a space/time continuoum (spelling) to land on the Ark Royal. Didn't the Ark Royal have an armoured flight deck? I remember that US carriers with their wooden flight decks lit up like torches when a kamikaze struck but for the British it was sweepers man your brooms.

Machinbird

2nd Apr 2018, 19:59

.Scott
Your detective work is more credible than those pictures I posted.:ok:
Did you use the wayback machine or one of the twitter features to trace the pictures back to the original posting?
Thanks for clearing up the misinformation I seem to have passed on.:O

Chu Chu

2nd Apr 2018, 23:23

According to Wikipedia, an Ark Royal was sunk in 1941. Unlike some other British carriers, it did not have an armored flight deck (probably wouldn't have stopped the torpedo that sank it, anyway). The next to bear the name was commissioned in 1950.

.Scott

3rd Apr 2018, 11:26

Lonewolf_50

3rd Apr 2018, 15:06

wiggy

3rd Apr 2018, 15:38

For a documentary on carrier based aircraft flying in different times (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080736/), one may find this illuminating.

Insofar as space junk is concerned, how close did any of the predictions come to the actual splashdown point in the Pacific?

Given the nature of the event and the number of fast changing variables (e.g. minute changes in density of the upper atmosphere) some of the agencies stopped updating predictions several hours out since and left it as plus or minus a few hours......anyhow the Pacific is always a safeish bet :}