Falling Satellite Expected to Crash Into Earth Soon

ABC News ^ | 11 09 13

[BarnacleCenturion]

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- A satellite about the size of a Volkswagen van is on its way back down to Earth. The over one ton satellite is expected to crash land sometime Sunday night or Monday morning. But at this point, it's not clear where.

[Toespi]

I don’t know......DC is pretty tempting.

[BenLurkin]

ESA gives it another 20 minutes to an hour more or less...http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/10/goce_satellite_re_entry_location/

[cripplecreek]

It doesn’t look like its gonna make it around again. Its 65 north and down to 120 up. I’m guessing this perigee will be its last.

[GOPJ]

... altitude was increasing?

What? Can you explain?

[cripplecreek]

Coming down really fast now. 50 north and 116 miles up.

[central_va]

[ken in texas]

CM observed in post 55 that some orbits are elliptical. If that's the case here, the altitude will still fluctuate throughout the descent.

[cripplecreek]

Heading toward the western edge of Australia now.

[Cvengr]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1311/10goce/#.UoAapCd6PLk

within the hour.....

[cripplecreek]

Its a north/south oval with the nearest approaches over the equator. About 103 miles up this last pass over the equator.

[cripplecreek]

Starting to look like it might come down over land. this next perigee will be over south America.

[Cvengr]

If it lands near Machu Pichu, just wait for the UFO CT threads to chime in...

[Daffynition]

LOL.....LOLZ

The little twerp always tried to sneak a look and copy my work.....I hated him. I'm sure, if he survived the nuke blast....he'd have amounted to nuthin'.

[ken in texas]

Thanks... I had to pull out my old Astrodynamics textbook to brush up on apogee and perigee.

[cripplecreek]

I think this one is coming down over land. Floridians keep an eye of the east coast of Florida. The path takes it almost dead over my house.

[Cvengr]

Apogee Dropped from 121km to 117km in the last 90 minutes.

[cripplecreek]

Seems to have a much lower perigee over the pacific. It was several miles higher over south America.

[Cvengr]

Now being shown over Mongolia.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

I was following the satellite at:
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/GOCE/Track_GOCE

I was following the real-time link (off) that page, the page itself is dead. But I had a real-time link.

Is anyone following the link and might have that shortcut?

(It is from the esa page, but the main link has already ended)

Thanks a bunch.

[cripplecreek]

I’m watching here. You might have to reload a few times to get it to come up.

http://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=34602