Should we be worried?! Spacecraft heading towards earth

[opel80uk]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...-10212205.html

[kalniel]

Won't it just burn up as it's designed to do on a planned return anyway?

[Jowsey]

Won't it just burn up as it's designed to do on a planned return anyway?

Won't see anything more than a very tiny dot fly across the sky at very high speed for a very breath moment.

No worries at all.

[g8ina]

Planned return burns are usually over sea, Pacific mostly, but if this is an uncontrolled re-entry it may just cause a problem.

[Lucio]

Might be a problem but honestly if you're worrying about it hitting you personally you might as well buy a lottery ticket, the odds are about the same.

[peterb]

Since there is nothing I can personally do to control it, and the likely risk is probably small, it isn't worth worrying about.

[ik9000]

as the article says, they are designed to burn up on reentry. No risk whatsoever.

[Ttaskmaster]

As the article also (mostly) says - It *could be* heading toward Earth...

[DanceswithUnix]

As the article also (mostly) says - It *could be* heading toward Earth...

Or they might stabilize it and complete the mission, but that wouldn't sell papers would it

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/...through-space/

It sounds like the craft isn't behaving properly, so controllers are trying to work out what is wrong before making the next move. In the mean time they have assumed the mission is a wipe, because that is the safest thing to do.

I mean what the heck do the Independant think is going to happen, this isn't Hollywood? Given this isn't thrilling news perhaps we can help by making something up...

Instant panic forces the astronauts in the ISS to cobble together a rocket powered sparkly space pony, ride out to the stricken craft and lasso it with their bare hands, towing it back to the starving ISS crew with seconds counting down until everyone dies from lack of air. Better?

[ik9000]

lasso it with their bare hands,

Sorry I could have believed the my-little-space-pony, but lassooing with barehands? How is that even possible? Isn't that more like a bear hug? Or are they Dhalsim out of SF2 or something?

[opel80uk]

So what you're all saying is that I needn't have told the missus about my affairs with her Mam and Sister?

[Smudger]

This is a major issue for me. I was already worried about the sky falling on my head, and now this!

[Jim - ASUS]

If it's an option, take the tube.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Be worried.....very worried...of.....plummeting.........
......MOOSE!!!!

[Goobley]

The Progress module is essentially a converted Soyuz. When Soyuz re-enters the only thing that survives is the spherical component, the rest is jettisoned and burns up on the atmosphere. Hitting the atmosphere with the rest of the components attached would massively increase the stresses on the module, destroying it much more efficiently than normal. Also if the orbit is slowly decaying (sounds like it is) then it will probably be coming down at quite a shallow angle and graze the atmosphere a couple of times before actually entering. This will do a good job at weakening the structure and removing outer bits.

As they said in Apollo 13: "In order to enter the atmosphere safely, the crew must aim for a corridor just two and a half degrees wide. ... The reentry corridor is, in fact, so narrow that if this basketball were the Earth, and this softball were the Moon, and the two were placed fourteen feet apart, the crew would have to hit a target no thicker than this piece of paper" Whilst this has fairly large safety tolerances and a smaller window due to the much higher speed the Apollo capsules were travelling as they returned from the moon, there's probably a decent chance that the module's orbit will decay outside of its safe window, which actually makes it safer for us by reducing the size of debris.

[Gerrard]

The reentry corridor is, in fact, so narrow that if this basketball were the Earth, and this softball were the Moon...

Reminded me of this...




I remember a comment someone made the last time there was a bus-sized satellite crashing to Earth: "I would be more worried about being hit by a satellite sized bus!".