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Short Sharp Science: A New Scientist blog

Space telescope crash lands over Bay of Bengal

Paul Marks, senior technology correspondent

UPDATE: The German X-ray telescope ROSAT fell to earth over the Bay Of Bengal on 23 October, say mission controllers at the German space agency in Cologne. Tracking data supplied by NASA on 25 October does not reveal if any of the craft survived searing temperatures to reach the ocean, nor if any debris hit land. "But 48 hours after deorbiting we have had no reports of any damage," says German space agency spokesman Andreas Schutz. "We think it fell entirely over water."

Rosat_Eintritt_16_9_l.jpg ROSAT, pictured in a false-colour radar image at an altitude of 200 kilometres on 20 October, three days before deorbiting (Image: Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency and Radar Technology)

As predicted, Germany's defunct ROSAT space telescope plummeted from Earth orbit over the weekend, burning up somewhere along a path over the Indian Ocean that headed towards Myanmar and China at around 02.00 GMT on 23 October. As the satellite deorbited in daylight, no visual sightings of it were possible - and there are, as yet at least, no reports of any damage due to falling space debris.

Mission controllers at the German space agency still do not know precisely where any parts that did not burn up - and large parts were expected to survive - may have hit the Earth's surface. "We are still waiting for updates from our satellite tracking partners on the eastern and western sides of the world," says spokesman Andreas Schutz.

The lack of precise location information has caused consternation in the media, baffled by the dearth of data in the days of GPS. But it is likely that US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) knows exactly where ROSAT came down - because it has infrared-seeking satellites trained on the planet seeking signs of heat from ballistic missile launches.

The searing heat from a re-entering satellite should be readily apparent to these satellites. But STRATCOM never quickly reveals what it knows (it took four or five days to reveal where NASA's UARS came down in September) as it might give an adversary clues about its tracking technology. So the German space agency will have to wait until STRATCOM is good and ready to reveal all its data.

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Good-bye ROSAT. You served us well.


The US never tell immediately when things occur because they dont want people to know? These guys track Everything over 4 inch accross, All The Time, and thats what they tell the public. They were following this thing all the way down as it happened.

Ok, what happened to the HAMs that use meteor trail communication signal bouncing methods? Their compters can follow a reentry ionisation trail within miliseconds so you cant tell me that a million fold budgeted dedicated space tracking department cant. If they cant, then they need to pick up some cheap working stuff off the counter instead of the stuff they have.

If you want to make a high speed detection card yourself, the XMOS card from Varisys has response times down to 8 nanoseconds, so not too difficult to make a crude phase array tracker.

What they should be looking at is instead ofjunking them, is collecting them with asmall solar powered ion tug, drag them to a central location, and recycle them there. Maybe the ISS.


QUOTE: "We think it fell entirely over water."
Why would they think?? Aren't they completely sure where it's going to enter the earth orbit with all the high tech equipment these days ...
Makes you feel even mure unsure about things ...

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