[meteorite-list] UARS -- Alberta or Pacific fall?

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:14:25 -0500
Message-ID: <A0926BCBDF2B4D72B9D954FBACED8284_at_ATARIENGINE2>

NASA releases location of UARS re-entry:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/uars/index.html

Far from Alberta: 14.1 South and 170.2 W.,
in the vicinity of Samoa, above Pago-Pago,
American Samoa, actually.


Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marco Langbroek" <marco.langbroek at wanadoo.nl>
To: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 2:55 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] UARS -- Alberta or Pacific fall?


> Doug wrote:
>
> "Can't they read a license plate from space?"
>
> You are thinking of the KH-12 Keyhole optical reconnaissance
> satellites here. These would not be so suitable for tracking UARS
> however, being in Low Earth Orbit and geared to make pictures of
> ground level.
>
> However, there is a series of infrared early warning satellites in
> geostationary and HEO orbit (DSP and SBIRS), and several of them are
> in positions that would have been suitable to detect UARS reentering
> as a fireball, see my blogpost at:
>
> http://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2011/09/could-reentry-of-uars-have-been.html
>
> These are the same satellites that in the past detected meteoric
> fireballs.
>
> But you are right, since 9-11 the DoD is much less willing to make
> this kind of data public.
>
> It wouldn't surprise me if the insistence it ended up in the Pacific
> even though the publicly acknowledged time frame of uncertainty is
> much wider than just the Pacific, has an origin in a satellite
> detection that remains classified. I am not saying it is, but it
> wouldn't surprise me. We'll never know for sure though.
>
> - Marco
>
> -----
> Dr Marco (asteroid 183294) Langbroek
> Dutch Meteor Society (DMS)
>
> e-mail: dms at marcolangbroek.nl
> http://www.dmsweb.org
> http://www.marcolangbroek.nl
> -----
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Received on Tue 27 Sep 2011 04:14:25 PM PDT