340 near miss with Russian satilite
03-28-2007, 12:49 PM
#1
Gets Weekends Off
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Joined APC: Jan 2006
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340 near miss with Russian satilite
A LAN chile 340 reported a near miss with a deorbiting russian satilite. It passed only 5 miles in front of the plane! That would have been an amazing sight to see from the pilots view
http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia...3&formato=HTML
http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia...3&formato=HTML
03-29-2007, 02:12 PM
#3
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Position: Burning the Agitprop of the Apparat
Posts: 6,191
Maybe not:
SANTIAGO, Chile - Pilots of a Chilean commercial jetliner spotted flaming objects falling past their plane as it headed for a landing in New Zealand, airline officials said Wednesday.
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U.S. experts suggested the objects were likely meteors burning up in the earth's atmosphere and questioned Australian media reports they were probably pieces of a falling Russian spacecraft.
LAN Chile airline said in a brief statement that the pilot, who was not identified, "made visual contact with incandescent fragments" several miles away on Monday. The Airbus 340 had just entered New Zealand airspace when the space debris was spotted.
The airline said it reported the incident to authorities in Chile and New Zealand.
Web sites of several Australian news media quoted officials as saying that pieces of a Russian satellite had narrowly missed the jet.
But Nicholas Johnson, orbital debris chief scientist for
NASA's Johnson Space Center, said that was likely not the case. Russian space junk was expected to come back to Earth — but not until about 12 hours after the incident with the jet, Johnson said.
He said he checked with the Russians and the debris — an empty Progress resupply ship that had been at the
International Space Station — re-entered Earth's atmosphere on schedule.
"Unless someone has their times wrong, there appears to be no correlation," Johnson told The Associated Press.
About 50 meteoroids enter the Earth's atmosphere every day — mostly burning up as they speed toward the planet — said Bill Ailor, director of the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at the Aerospace Corporation of El Segundo, Calif.
Those that survive and hit the ground are called meteorites.
By contrast, about 150 pieces of man-made space junk fall back to Earth each year, with about two-thirds of it coming as unplanned entries, Ailor said.
Larger pieces of man-made space equipment, such as the Progress resupply ship, have motors to guide them back to Earth, Ailor said. If they are calculated to have more than a 1 in 10,000 chance of hitting people, they are shifted to a safer path, he said, though small errors can lead to large variations in where the debris hits.
No one has ever been killed by space junk, Ailor said, although in 1997, an Oklahoma woman was grazed in the shoulder by piece.
___
Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this story from Washington.
SANTIAGO, Chile - Pilots of a Chilean commercial jetliner spotted flaming objects falling past their plane as it headed for a landing in New Zealand, airline officials said Wednesday.
ADVERTISEMENT
U.S. experts suggested the objects were likely meteors burning up in the earth's atmosphere and questioned Australian media reports they were probably pieces of a falling Russian spacecraft.
LAN Chile airline said in a brief statement that the pilot, who was not identified, "made visual contact with incandescent fragments" several miles away on Monday. The Airbus 340 had just entered New Zealand airspace when the space debris was spotted.
The airline said it reported the incident to authorities in Chile and New Zealand.
Web sites of several Australian news media quoted officials as saying that pieces of a Russian satellite had narrowly missed the jet.
But Nicholas Johnson, orbital debris chief scientist for
NASA's Johnson Space Center, said that was likely not the case. Russian space junk was expected to come back to Earth — but not until about 12 hours after the incident with the jet, Johnson said.
He said he checked with the Russians and the debris — an empty Progress resupply ship that had been at the
International Space Station — re-entered Earth's atmosphere on schedule.
"Unless someone has their times wrong, there appears to be no correlation," Johnson told The Associated Press.
About 50 meteoroids enter the Earth's atmosphere every day — mostly burning up as they speed toward the planet — said Bill Ailor, director of the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at the Aerospace Corporation of El Segundo, Calif.
Those that survive and hit the ground are called meteorites.
By contrast, about 150 pieces of man-made space junk fall back to Earth each year, with about two-thirds of it coming as unplanned entries, Ailor said.
Larger pieces of man-made space equipment, such as the Progress resupply ship, have motors to guide them back to Earth, Ailor said. If they are calculated to have more than a 1 in 10,000 chance of hitting people, they are shifted to a safer path, he said, though small errors can lead to large variations in where the debris hits.
No one has ever been killed by space junk, Ailor said, although in 1997, an Oklahoma woman was grazed in the shoulder by piece.
___
Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this story from Washington.
03-31-2007, 06:18 PM
#5
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Joined APC: Feb 2005
Position: Retired UPS 767 Captain, SDF Z
Posts: 431
A LAN chile 340 reported a near miss with a deorbiting russian satilite. It passed only 5 miles in front of the plane! That would have been an amazing sight to see from the pilots view
http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia...3&formato=HTML
http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia...3&formato=HTML
I've seen burning space debris at night, and it is spectacular. Initially I think it's close, due to the brightness, but then I realize its many many miles away.
03-31-2007, 06:59 PM
#6
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Sep 2006
Position: 1st class
Posts: 250
whatever
If your flying out in the middle of south pacific and your hit with any type of post orbital space junk moving over 10000fps its just your time buddy. Your number is up! I couldnt even guess the odds.......
If your flying out in the middle of south pacific and your hit with any type of post orbital space junk moving over 10000fps its just your time buddy. Your number is up! I couldnt even guess the odds.......
03-31-2007, 08:19 PM
#7
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Joined APC: Mar 2006
Position: Contract purgatory
Posts: 701
Space agents blamed for mid-air near miss
Russian space experts are being asked to explain how they got wrong the re-entry time of a falling satellite that narrowly missed a jetliner over the Pacific Ocean on Monday night. Flaming pieces of the satellite are thought to have come within five nautical miles (9.2km) of a Lan Chile Airbus A340 travelling from Santiago, the Chilean capital, to Auckland and Sydney
I thought their excuse sounded fishy, if not a fairly improbable.
Russian space experts are being asked to explain how they got wrong the re-entry time of a falling satellite that narrowly missed a jetliner over the Pacific Ocean on Monday night. Flaming pieces of the satellite are thought to have come within five nautical miles (9.2km) of a Lan Chile Airbus A340 travelling from Santiago, the Chilean capital, to Auckland and Sydney
I thought their excuse sounded fishy, if not a fairly improbable.
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