Re: Re-entry of 15001D / 40373 seen from Russia

Ted - a correction: as far as I can tell, on the two immediately previous
Dragon missions the second stage has been actively deorbited on the first
rev.
If D is the second stage, this is the first time since CRS-2 that it has
remained in orbit - I wonder whether that was intended, or reflects a
deorbit burn failure?

> The Falcon stage typically re-enters about a week later

I concur that the decay rate of the objects compared with that of CRS-2
supports your interpretation that D is the second stage.


On 18 January 2015 at 09:30, Ted Molczan via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org>
wrote:

> It appears that the re-entry of 15001D / 40373 was seen from Russia's far
> east Amur Region on Jan 17 21:48 UTC (Jan 18
> near 06:48 local time).
>
> The first USSTRATCOM TIP message was issued a couple of hours before
> re-entry. The second and probably final one was
> issued a couple of hours after re-entry. It reported the time of decay as
> 2015 Jan 17 21:46 UTC +/- 7 min., and the
> location as 52 deg N, 121 deg E.
>
> USSTRATCOM identifies 15001D / 40373 as debris of Dragon CRS-5; however, I
> believe it was the Falcon 9 second stage. The
> Dragon spacecraft jettisons two solar array covers upon reaching orbit,
> which typically decay within 2 or 3 days of
> launch. The Falcon stage typically re-enters about a week later. The
> respective decay dates of objects 15001B / 40371
> and 15001C / 40372 were 2015 Jan 13 and Jan 12, consistent with the solar
> array covers, but USSTRATCOM identified B as
> the Falcon 9 second stage. The identities of 15001B / 40371 and 15001D /
> 40373 should be swapped.
>
> I have seen reports of sightings from the following locations:
>
> Blagoveshchensk  50.28 N, 127.54 E
> Belogorsk        50.92 N, 128.47 E
> Khabarovsk Krai  48.50 N, 135.07 E  45 s duration
>
> So far, I have found the following sources of information on the sightings.
>
> http://vk.com/astro.nomy?w=wall-727032_52634
>
> Video:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV12M3xZopA
>
> RT has a report:
>
> http://rt.com/news/223771-russia-meteorite-far-east/
>
> Ted Molczan
>
>
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