[meteorite-list] OT: Probable launch debris recovered from South Carolina

From: Richard Kowalski <damoclid_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 19:13:12 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <335194.17563.qm_at_web113609.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

All true Rob. but arguing against 6 months in the ocean is the apparent lack of sea life colonizing the fairing.
 

--
Richard Kowalski
Full Moon Photography
IMCA #1081
--- On Mon, 5/24/10, Matson, Robert D. <ROBERT.D.MATSON at saic.com> wrote:
> From: Matson, Robert D. <ROBERT.D.MATSON at saic.com>
> Subject: [meteorite-list] OT: Probable launch debris recovered from South Carolina
> To: "Stuart McDaniel - Action Shooting Supply" <actionshooting at carolina.rr.com>
> Cc: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Monday, May 24, 2010, 6:48 PM
> Hi Stuart,
> 
> I definitely agree with you that the South Carolina debris
> is
> the inside of a launch fairing. But I've read that the SC
> debris had French writing on it, which may rule out being
> associated with the X-37B. Don't know -- space hardware is
> made by lots of folks, so it doesn't necessarily have to
> be
> from a French launch.
> 
> My favorite candidate is the launch fairing that protected
> the
> Helios IIB spysat launched December 18, 2009. (The Ariane
> launch
> prior to that was on October 29, 2009, but it was a
> commercial
> comsat launch, so it would have jettisoned the fairing
> close to
> the equator. Currents there tend not to take things to the
> East
> Coast, but instead down into the South Atlantic.) There is
> just
> about the right amount of time between a mid-December
> Kourou
> launch and when the fairing dumped into the Atlantic could
> make
> landfall on the east coast.
> 
> That said, if the X-37B used a French- or Swiss-made
> fairing,
> then it would spend far less time in the Atlantic following
> a
> Cape launch before making landfall.? Which means an
> April Cape
> launch would ALSO be the right amount of lag time for May
> landfall.
> 
> --Rob
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Received on Mon 24 May 2010 10:13:12 PM PDT