[meteorite-list] UARS -- Alberta or Pacific fall?

[Marco Langbroek]

Doug wrote:

"Can't they read a license plate from space?"

You are thinking of the KH-12 Keyhole optical reconnaissance satellites here. 
These would not be so suitable for tracking UARS however, being in Low Earth 
Orbit and geared to make pictures of ground level.

However, there is a series of infrared early warning satellites in geostationary 
and HEO orbit (DSP and SBIRS), and several of them are in positions that would 
have been suitable to detect UARS reentering as a fireball, see my blogpost at:

http://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2011/09/could-reentry-of-uars-have-been.html

These are the same satellites that in the past detected meteoric fireballs.

But you are right, since 9-11 the DoD is much less willing to make this kind of 
data public.

It wouldn't surprise me if the insistence it ended up in the Pacific even though 
the publicly acknowledged time frame of uncertainty is much wider than just the 
Pacific, has an origin in a satellite detection that remains classified. I am 
not saying it is, but it wouldn't surprise me. We'll never know for sure though.

- Marco

-----
Dr Marco (asteroid 183294) Langbroek
Dutch Meteor Society (DMS)

e-mail: dms at marcolangbroek.nl
http://www.dmsweb.org
http://www.marcolangbroek.nl
-----