[meteorite-list] Asteroid Hunter Apparently Finds Apollo-Era Rocket, NASA Says

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:08:24 2004
Message-ID: <200209131514.IAA06277_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/space/1572931

Asteroid hunter apparently finds Apollo-era rocket, NASA says
Associated Press
September 12, 2002

LOS ANGELES -- An amateur astronomer hunting
for asteroids may have discovered a piece of the rocket
that launched the Apollo 12 astronauts to the moon in
1969, a NASA scientist said Thursday.

The object was first spied on Sept. 3 by Arizona
astronomer Bill Yeung. Follow-up observations and
calculations of its path suggest it is orbiting the Earth
once every 48 days at a distance twice that of the
moon.

Although initially believed to be an asteroid,
astronomers now suspect it is a rocket fragment,
possibly the third stage of the massive Saturn V
launched Nov. 14, 1969, with astronauts Charles
"Pete" Conrad Jr., Richard Gordon and Alan Bean
aboard.

"It's a detective story and we're looking at the
evidence here," said Paul Chodas, an astronomer at
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Complex orbit calculations suggest the fragment,
which stands nearly 59 feet tall, was captured into
Earth orbit in April, explaining why it had not been
spotted before. Before this spring, the rocket stage
had likely spent three decades orbiting the sun,
Chodas said.

On the Apollo 8 through 12 missions, NASA designed
the third stage of each Saturn V rocket -- which
boosted the astronauts from Earth orbit toward the
moon -- to sail past Earth's lone natural satellite.

That close passage by the moon was designed to
swing the stage into solar orbit and away from Earth.

The first four times, it worked perfectly, but NASA
engineers made an error on Apollo 12, leaving the third
stage stranded in Earth orbit. Eventually, in the early
1970s, it drifted from the Earth's bounds and began
orbiting the sun.

In April, the Earth apparently snagged it back, Chodas
said.

Looking forward, NASA astronomers said there is a
20 percent chance the rocket will end up hitting the
moon -- as did the third stages of the Apollo 13
through 17 missions.

There is also a 3 percent chance it could strike Earth,
as did some Apollo stages in the 1960s. Most of the
rocket body would burn up in the atmosphere, although
some pieces could survive the fiery re-entry, Chodas
said.
Received on Fri 13 Sep 2002 11:14:53 AM PDT