Satellite going AWOL at 28,000km/hr — tracking that Chinese stray machinery

Satellite going AWOL at 28,000km/hr — tracking that Chinese stray machinery

The ESA blog has this trajectory “prediction”. Given that the window of reentry stretches across a day and the object in question is doing 28,000 km per hour, we can say for sure this will hit Earth. (Or rather some small part that survives the burning up process). Two weeks ago Roy Spencer predicted it will probably hit “the ocean” and explained why it is so difficult to estimate the actual impact point. It is circling the Earth every 89 minutes.
Tiangong-1 altitude decay forecast as of 30 March Credit: ESA

This minute it is over IranJapan –  The Pacific — by the time you read this that will be irrelevant. See this map. (Can people spot this going over?) It’s is 180km above Earth and according to Satview, doing 28,062km/hr.

Reentry will take place anywhere between 43ºN and 43ºS. So most people on Earth could get lucky, but we can rule out those in Canada, Russia, and central-northern Europe. Predictions have changed in the last 24 hours because the Sun didn’t send a stream of high speed particles that was expected. (That would have increased the density of the upper atmosphere and slowed the satellite down faster.)

Map satellite impact zone

Useful sites:

h/t’s– thanks Yarpos

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March 30, 2018 at 08:38PM

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