18 January 2015

Russia Meteor Space Trash? 18JAN2015 Video

Russia Meteor Space Trash Re-entry? 18JAN2015
Breaking Story-  Multiple bodies - Fragmentation.  Delayed 8 minute loud boom.
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Russia Meteor Space Trash Re-entry? 18JAN2015
Image Credit- RT.com
Meteor-like object lights up sky over Russian Far East
Posted to YouTube by RT 301 views
Published on Jan 18, 2015
COURTESY: Konstantin Pivkin http://instagram.com/kostya_talakan/
  The sky in Russia's Far East was lit up by a strange object on Sunday morning, 18JAN2015.. It flew over the city of Blagoveschensk leaving behind a long trail of white light, which reportedly hung in the sky for the next two hours. But the journey was short-lived. After a few seconds the object exploded in a bright flash. Locals claim they witnessed a meteorite, but so far there has been no official information about the celestial phenomena.

Astronomer / Space Trash Expert Notes-
I believe this to have been the re-entry of the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that launched the Dragon CRS-5 spacecraft.
I posted a more detailed report to SeeSat-L:
http://satobs.org/seesat/Jan-2015/0122.html
Ted Molczan

Update-
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
2015 The SECOND Year of "CERTAIN Uncertainty" ™ / Meteors, Asteroids, Comets, and MORE!!

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