North Korean satellite 'tumbling out of control,' US officials say

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
yep, around .02km per second, and it doesnt stop!

581km altitude / .02 = 29050
29050/60 = 484
484 / 60 = 8.

I'm not up to date on my astrophysics, should that be happening?

I put it at 8-9hrs until its 0.

With your input I bet we could calculate ground zero..
Saying we I mean you..

I was googling the falling satellite and came across Gizmodo website... Their page gif file is the best in the world. Funny as hell. It depicts Mr Un flying uncontrollably in the atmosphere.

m.gizmodo.com...
(Visit website to see article and animated gif)

reply to post by Spacespider


haha, yeah. I doubt it. my maths is only as good as my keyboard numpad!

But, its definately losing .02km ever second...

hmm, not i cant track it!

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
Hey...Where is that satellite that's suppose to capture and help deorbit defunct ones? Was that just a one shot try to test it or is that something up there to help with these little misadventures by the lesser nations?

(great big grin)

That exists. No lie. We like to call it..."adversarial maintenance".

If it made it to a stable orbit (as they say...) and THEN started to oddly enough fall out, one might be given to wonder about such a thing, one might. Orbital mechanics normally wouldn't do that for you unless you were in VERY low Earth orbit.

I can think of a few reasons why that might happen. Not saying any of them apply. One might, for example, attach a conductive loop to the satellite. That was tested on an STS mission - the magnetic field of the Earth heats the loop, the energy is taken from the orbital speed of the satellite - you can see it light up in IR if any of you have a major world class telescope. Drags 'em right down.

If the thing got to a starting orbit but then wasn't able to fire its OMS to stabilize the orbit, and started tumbling and falling in, well, how could you know? It might just be a POS. Or maybe it took a laser pop or two. Or a kinetic projectile. Small caliber projectiles work great in space. Who can say?

reply to post by Chansi3


If I calculated correctly it is dropping at a rate of approximately 1.10 km per minute which would put it in contact with the upper atmosphere in about 6.81 hours. As far as where it would fall . . . no idea. But from past experience it will probably, and hopefully, fall into the ocean.

I suck at math so . . .

Edit to add: I am going to guess impact somewhere off over the eastern Mediterranean to North Central Africa (Libya) . . . give or take a few hundred miles . . . if it doesn't burn up in the atmosphere.

reply to post by Yngvarr


Blahh to believe that they execute their people to the extent our media portrays is to buy into the propaganda.

Reeling that turkey in with our minds.

Hope it doesn't land on our heads.

it seems to be falling buy why is no one reporting on it if its going to crash back to earth?

Originally posted by nonnez
reply to post by Chansi3

 

If I calculated correctly it is dropping at a rate of approximately 1.10 km per minute which would put it in contact with the upper atmosphere in about 6.81 hours. As far as where it would fall . . . no idea. But from past experience it will probably, and hopefully, fall into the ocean.

I suck at math so . . .

By the path and time remaining, I'm going to guess that it falls right back into N. Korea.

Peace

Originally posted by TheLieWeLive
Does anyone on here know if this satellite was to have a nuclear reactor powering it and a warhead was used to destroy it, could it create a Electro Magnetic Pulse big enough to affect whatever country it was over or near?

edit on 12-12-2012 by TheLieWeLive because: (no reason given)

That's what I thought as well, but if anyone were going to EMP the US, they'd need more than one to be effective, and they'd all have to go off at the same time. You'd need three at 300 miles up to cover 75% of the lower 48 States. It's just not something North Korea could pull off. China could, but they won't. Russia could but they won't.

The EMP is the single most effective non-destructive weapon in existence due to how far it can reach when at high altitude. It's the fastest way to bring the US (or any first world nation) to it's knees in a hurry. If ever there were a potential for a huge false flag, an EMP attack would be it. Most of the US isn't hardened for an attack. You'd see everything shut down and stay down for quite a long time.

Headline NEWS:

N. Korea test ICBM crashes into and destroys the temple at Mecca.
Muslims unhappy.
Holy war imminent.



Ah, if only.
Crackpot Dictator vs. Religious Fanatics; who would win?
Go!




Edit: (wearing tinfoil hat) wouldn't it be interesting if such or similar were to happen?
Certain there's a government somewhere on the planet that might have super secret hush hush black project intercept capability that could exploit the media splash of an unpredictable out of control N. Korea "satellite" to, um, purposely guide the object toward any available target of opportunity that could squarely be blamed on N. Korea? Additionally, such an intercept could rather conveniently attach an armed, nuclear warhead to the satellite? Who's going to believe N. Korea if they say it's a set-up frame job?

Well this looks like a job for the X-37B, Amerika to the rescue!!!!.... Is it just me or odd timing for the next unknown mission of this orbital craft, just happens to be around the same time Jung Un decides to fire some more space junk into orbit????

SaneThinking

reply to post by CALGARIAN


In related news the USA has recently launched a secret space mission.

Nuff said?

Originally posted by Yngvarr
Sounds like the X-37B is doing it's job.

Is this that "kill Shot" I've heard about?

The X-37 is nowhere near the satellite. It's in the wrong orbit to get anywhere near it, and doesn't have enough fuel to get near it. If they were going to use it to try to do something against it, then it would have to have launched from Vandenberg.

Not to mention that the X-37 mission was planned long before this launch was known. It was delayed due to an engine malfunction with an Atlas that uses the same engine. They wanted to figure out what caused that problem before they launched the X-37. The original launch date was October.

If I recall correctly a few years back it was found out that the command, control, and telemetry software for TDRS was stolen about ten years ago. That software was written before there were any ummm safety features put into it. I wonder if maybe it fell into the hands of the North Korean's?

reply to post by Zaphod58


so essentially they shoot this ship up there give it only enough fuel to get home it spends days upon days and months upon months circling the globe and comes home with no explaination.... I was hoping this thing was some operational drive anywhere in space vehicle. I really should thouroughly read your posts on the subject.

SaneThinking

reply to post by SaneThinking


The original launch date was 25 October. North Korea announced on December 1 that they were launching a missile. It's coincidence.

reply to post by SaneThinking


No, it has plenty of fuel to alter its orbit, but the alteration that they would have to do to get near the NK satellite is more than it could carry. It takes a lot of fuel to make such a radical change. It can go higher or lower in its orbit, or make alterations to the path, but nothing so radical as to get to the satellite. The X-37 is actually really small. It was designed so the shuttle could carry two of them in the payload bay at one time. The payload bay on the X-37 is only the size of a pickup truck bed.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Icic thank you for the run down, whats your opinion on what it actually does then if not a hunter killer, and unmanned with instruments I'm sure the ISS posses what is its actual purpose in laymans terms???

SaneThinking

reply to post by Zaphod58

How do you know what is the orbit of X-37 when it's classified?
Sorry to ask, of course you don't need to answer this question.