Friday 28 March 2008

Two satellite fuel tanks survive re-entry

Two recent finds of satellite fuel tanks - both of carbon-wrapped titanium fuel tanks from the Atlas Centaur upper stages of two US military satellite launches probably - are in the news at the same time. One came down a week ago in Brasil, the other was found in the autumn of 2007 in Australia.

The Brasilian tank (source):




The Australian tank (source):




The Brasilian fuel tank is very likely part of the upper Centaur stage of the rocket that launched a US military communications satellite (Global SATCOM, 2007-046B) in October 2007. The Australian fuel tank could be a part of the upper Centaur stage of the rocket that launched another military satellite, USA 138 (1998-016A) in 1998.

2 comments:

Aaron the Wise-Guy said...

Here in Australia, this was written up as "Mysterious object crashes to Earth" - even though it was known that it is a fuel tank - and accompanied in the media by reports of UFO sightings. I hate headline grabbing!

Unknown said...

Marco,

The one that fell last week did it in Brasil, not in Argentina.
It was at the state of Goias, Brazilian countryside.
Unlinke the one in Australia, people here didn't treated the incident as a UFO crash, even in the early moments.

By the way, last night got ISS and ATV-1 crossing over here. A friend of mine in Goiania (Goias state) and me, in Rio de Janeiro, were able to see them in a high position above the horizon.


Regards