|
Find out more about Patricia: An award-winning journalist, author, and former NASA spokesman, Patricia Phillips has written about space for international markets since the 1970's. She's a skilled platform speaker, anthologized poet, and popular Native American story teller. Her love for space began when she watched Sputnik sail overhead and thought the whole idea was as magical as anything she could ever imagine. She still does. |

Here's some news from NASA's Orbital Debris mitigation office: a Delta solid rocket motor casing has been found in the outback of Australia.
This piece of space junk (shout-out to Jeff Horwich of "In the Loop", who now has a history with me 'n space junk) is from
..a Delta 2 launch vehicle used on 12 June 1990 to deliver the Indian INSAT-1D geosynchronous spacecraft from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
This solid rocket motor served as the launch vehicle’s third stage (U.S. Satellite Number 20645, International Designator 1990-051C), which carried the payload from a low altitude parking orbit into a geosynchronous transfer orbit of 135 km by 39,750 km with an inclination of 27.2 degrees. Reentry of the stage occurred a few months later.
The object joins similar solid rocket motor casings found in Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and
Argentina during the past several years.
So, after not burning up in re-entry, this casing went walkabout in Australia's outback, right? Right. Arthur Taylor spied it while flying a Cessna rounding up cattle and Michael White snapped this photo.
How's that for hands across the oceans and all that? But wait--in all those numbers NASA threw at us, where's the beef (shout-out to cattle drives)?
Just how heavy is that thing? Not only that, but was there any left-over space slime left on that thing? I went sleuthing to the Orbital Debris office to ask them, only to discover that a) no phone numbers are provided for contacts but b) I can email or fax them.
Hey! What's up with that? Excuse me, I seem to be suffering from Larry Grimes Unavoidable Hyper-reflexive Awful Pun Syndrome (U-HAPS). Grimes is a career NASA and Kennedy Space Center employee, now retired, who was reknowned for finding the most awful puns even in the midst of say, a three-million-acre pasture like the one with the casing.
Don't worry, though, despite lack of first contact (HAPS!)with the NASA space junk folks, I'm on the case (H--oh, never mind). I've emailed the NASA Orbital Debris office to ask the question of the day: if this thing had landed, say, on my house, how bad would I be feeling about this UFO?
Well, ex-UFO. Once the folks at Kennedy Space Center got this space trash's number, they were able to search out records to make it an IFO,F (Identified Flying Object, Former--terminology mine).
In case you want to get the low-down on space junk, the Debris folks even publish a newsletter. They proudly advertise: "The Orbital Debris Quarterly News (ODQN) contains the latest breaking news in orbital debris research."
Breaking news? (HAPS!) So how much did that thing weigh?
I'll let you know when I get the answer to "what's up with down?"