A Chinese Rocket Is Wildly Careening Toward Earth This Weekend

a reply to: NorthOfStuff

Who's, the Chinese?

They probably all went home. They didn't care.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: shooterbrody

LOLOLOLOL!!

Yeah, nothing at all!

If you know, you know.
Nothing there but rats, donkeys, and crabs.
Lol

a reply to: shooterbrody

...and cow birds...which are pretty tasty by the way, on a spit over a little fire behind one of the conex's, but don't tell anyone, okay?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

OK, I think I see (and I caught where you intended NW of Perth... that was confusing me a little as well).

I just want to verify something I think I know: elliptical orbits present a higher velocity at perigee than apogee, due to the changing altitude approaching each. Re-entry will always be as the object is approaching perigee, and re-entry will slow the object due to friction with the atmosphere (also causing superheating and burn-up), which will in turn decay the orbit quickly. So splashdown/impact would be expected somewhere along the orbital path just after re-entry, correct?

Now... at the speed this rocket was traveling in that section of its orbit, how far would you expect it to travel laterally before splashdown/impact? I am assuming based on what you posted earlier, that would be far less than a single orbit, correct?

I wish I had time to ask this while we were all watching the show. That would have verified that it was not going to hit anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, would it not?

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

All correct.

If you were to plot altitude on an x,y graph, with distance across the x axis, what you would see would be a negative parabola which suddenly dropped off geometrically near the minimum.

As far as distance is concerned, it can vary depending on how the vehicle breaks up, but generally 200 miles of dispersion would probably be average. So, not very far, relatively speaking.

ETA - Verification - Well, I'd love to answer that as a "yes", but the data alleged seems to suggest otherwise. I simply cannot make the Maldives work. It should have been too high. Is it possible? Perhaps, but something weird would have happened before that somewhere around Australia (i.e. major break up, detonation, etc.). That would have been noticeable on several fronts though, not the least of which would have been the track.

I'll make an attempt at an analogy here...

Imagine a very high velocity bullet on an upward trajectory when it impacts a small twig. The trajectory might swing wildly upwards momentarily, but it will also swing back downwards very quickly. So, what you would see would be a gradual upward path with a sudden hook at the end which goes violently upwards and back down (again, relatively speaking).

That's kind of crude, but it's the only approximation I can think of as an example.

Well, I think my own personal trajectory is crashing down now, so I'm going to have to go 'crash' in my lovely bed.

Take care, all! It was fun tonight. More to come though I think.

G'night!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

OK, thanks. With that in mind, how about this for a conspiratorial angle?

Let's assume for the moment that all your calcs are correct and the rocket made a big plop near Diego Garcia. It makes sense that the USA does not want global attention focused there, so NASA/DoD/QRSTUV left the simulations running instead of reporting the actual splashdown, instead letting it appear to have made another orbit and hit near the Maldives. That's the only thing I can think of that makes sense given the confusion and positions.

That brings up the question of what is really happening in Diego Garcia?

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Or maybe there was no splashdown because someone actually did use some of their new high tech gadgets to either somehow capture it, or instantly disintegrate it, but they're keeping it on the down-low. They're not gonna openly tell the whole world about all of their toys.

Most meteors can naturally orient themselves so they stop tumbling as they enter the thicker atmosphere. If large, it makes them certainly more dangerous because they have speed that might be able to get them to the ground at cosmic velocity before they detonate in the thick lower atmosphere.

Irregular objects like this space junk will tumble and produce various drag as they re-enter and they also spin so fast that they break up high in the atmosphere. The pieces that orient themselves will lead the group followed by a bunch of tumbling debris. They will all reach terminal velocity or close, before they impact.

Ground track will not be able to tell where the train of debris will land until this breakup happens.

Very fortunate is was an ocean landing. Trouble is, this seems to be the modus operandi of the other large chinese ships that are carrying this stuff up to build their station. We may see this scenario again soon.

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

That's actually the reason for multi-stage rockets.

There are other reasons for using multi-stage rockets too.

The first stage just gets the rocket going up at sufficient velocity to exit the atmosphere, then drops off without ever achieving orbit. It's fairly straightforward establishing a trajectory for such a projectile, almost like shooting a gun. The next stage(s) are designed to separate into orbit, but also to burn up on re-entry. They can be made smaller and lighter because all the extreme force occurs in the first stage.

TheRedneck

Much of the first and second stages burn up on re-entry, but some parts don't. In March 2021, SpaceX launched "Starlink17" and the second stage did burn up somewhat on entering the Earth's atmosphere, but this pressure tank reached the ground, which is a common type of item to not burn up and reach the ground from rocket stages. It's in amazingly good condition and you can see a lot of detail in the composite structure. It probably hit the ground at terminal velocity and barely made a dent when it hit.

Debris from SpaceX rocket launch falls on farm in central Washington

This pressure vessel, which came from the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket, fell onto a farm in central Washington, local authorities reported April 2, 2021. (Image credit: Grant County Sheriff/Twitter)...

Although Falcon 9 rocket successfully delivered 60 Starlink satellites to orbit last month, the rocket's second stage didn't deorbit properly after completing the mission.

At least SpaceX has a plan to de-orbit their second stages properly, though that didn't go according to plan on this particular launch.

So there's reason to be skeptical of China's claim, "don't worry, it will all burn up on re-entry", since parts can reach the ground (or ocean).

This is an illustration of the second stage on the SpaceX website, (what it looked like before re-entering the atmosphere):

www.spacex.com...

a reply to: TheRedneck

Well, I posted the DG thing as kind of a lark (conspiracy board and all). I was really just more amused at the proximity. Even if an object like that actually hit DG it probably wouldn't do any appreciable damage. So, it was just more of a fun fact than anything.

As for what goes on at DG, it would probably be a real bummer for most when they found out. It's really just a very remote air base which just happens to serve as a really good hiding place. As such, it's a very good location to launch long range attack missions, especially on countries who lack highly sophisticated (and outrageously expensive) over-the-horizon radar systems.

DG gets a fair amount of attention in conspiracy theories just because of its remote nature. It's hard to get to, it takes a long time and folks are discouraged from getting too close. That's about it.

ETA - I like your theory though! That would make total sense. In fact, it may be one of the actual reasons this little factoid of information hasn't seen wider circulation.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Agreed on all. Thanks!

originally posted by: BarbaraTheEnlightened1
Brad is telling me that this will land somewhere in the ocean.

Love & Light

Barbara

Xxxx

I shall leave this here as proof of my gift.

Bless you x x x

originally posted by: BarbaraTheEnlightened1

originally posted by: BarbaraTheEnlightened1
Brad is telling me that this will land somewhere in the ocean.

Love & Light

Barbara

Xxxx

I shall leave this here as proof of my gift.

Bless you x x x

Thanks for your gift.

With 71% of earth being water, you hedged your bet well.

I hear that the Chinese are launching 8-10 more of these "missions" to continue assembling their space station.

We just discovered a new game:

Chinese Roulette.

a reply to: SleeperHasAwakened

With as much attention as this shot got, I suspect the Chinese may be a little bit more careful next time. China got some pretty negative press on this one, something they probably won't want to repeat. Bad Feng Shui.

originally posted by: SleeperHasAwakened
I hear that the Chinese are launching 8-10 more of these "missions" to continue assembling their space station.

We just discovered a new game:

Chinese Roulette.

The only way to stop it is to shoot them down right after launch.

a reply to: Trueman

Well, that's certainly the easiest time to shoot one down, during the sub-orbital phase.

Might be just a 'tad' bit provocative though!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

You think the Chinese cares about bad press? They released an engineered virus on the entire glode and have yet to suffer any effects.