[meteorite-list] More on UARS reentry

From: Matson, Robert D. <ROBERT.D.MATSON_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:35:14 -0700
Message-ID: <9180F6B27399C541B10663E21C8BDE9202D77473_at_0461-its-exmb09.us.saic.com>

Hi All,

>From my message last Friday:

September 24, 2011 (UT)

04:00 Just east of Somoa 146 km
04:18:30-04:20 Washington state 140 km
04:20-04:24:30 Western Canada 141-143 km
.
.
.

- - - - -

So reentry would have been right around 4:00 UT. I wonder if it is
possible for dense, spalled fragments (e.g. bolts) from the main
break-up to survive a bit longer and show up on Doppler radar a
sixth of an orbit later? The reason I ask is that over the weekend
I did find some high-altitude Doppler "blips" in two radars that
appear along what would have been UARS's ground track had it
survived that far:

Missoula, MT
------------

4:26:20 2.5-deg 49.722N, 116.058W, 22.5 km
         2.5-deg 49.431N, 116.735W, 22.5 km
         4.5-deg 50.045N, 113.468W, 34.1 km
04:36:27 4.5-deg 49.584N, 116.402W, 34.0 km
04:46:34 4.5-deg 49.785N, 115.830W, 33.9 km
         4.5-deg 50.013N, 113.378W, 33.8 km

Great Falls, MT
---------------

04:13:03 2.5-deg 50.182N, 113.336W, 21.9 km
         3.5-deg 49.277N, 114.993W, 27.8 km (outlier?)
04:44:35 3.5-deg 50.267N, 113.034W, 27.7 km
04:55:04 3.5-deg 50.384N, 112.484W, 27.8 km

With the exception of the return I've labeled as an outlier,
these points are fairly linear and oriented in roughly the right
direction. I haven't compared the exact coordinates with the
predicted ground track of UARS, but by eye they don't appear to
be too far off. That said, the returns could just be noise that
just happens to be in about the right location. I would need
to check data from several preceding hours to see if similar
noise blips appear.

--Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of
Sterling K. Webb
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 1:14 PM
To: Meteorite List
Cc: Marco Langbroek
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] UARS -- Alberta or Pacific fall?

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
Received on Tue 27 Sep 2011 04:35:14 PM PDT