Astronomers: the second stage of the Falcon 9 exploded over Blagoveshchensk

According to observations and information from publicly available databases, it was found that an unknown object recently appeared in the sky of the Far East is most likely the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, Gazeta.ru reports .

Yesterday at about 00:50 Moscow time, some residents of the Far East could observe an unusual phenomenon in the sky. A large space object of unknown origin entered the atmosphere above their head. In Khabarovsk, entry was recorded at 00:45 Moscow time.

The object lit the sky and burst. A few minutes later there was a clap from the explosion, its strength was small - the windows in the windows of the houses did not even rattle from it. The trail from the explosion remained in the sky for about two hours, witnesses said.

The team established the nature of the object: Stanislav Korotkiy, scientific director of the FPA Ka-Dar astronomical observatory, Vitaly Egorov, employee of the private space company Dauria (widely known on Runet under the nickname Zelenyikot ), and observer from Petrozavodsk Andrei Mezentsev.

We used data from the space-track.org database , which contains information about the spacecraft in orbit of the Earth, and the Heavens-Above website for tracking artificial satellites. Researchers found objects that were supposed to enter the Earth’s atmosphere and fall in the next day. Best of all, the second stage of the Falcon 9 approached the role of a troublemaker.





Then the flight path of an unknown object over Blagoveshchensk was compared with the flight path of Falcon 9. It turned out that they are very similar. This hypothesis is also supported by speed characteristics and how the object collapsed.

On January 10, the privately held SpaceX company successfully launched the Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station. They tried to put the first stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle on a barge for the first time in history, but the success of this task was only partial - in the hydraulic drive of the trellised rudders, the liquid ran out and the rocket fell hard onto the surface of a deserted sea landing platform.

SpaceX hopes to succeed in a missile reuse program. Such will allow reduce the cost of launching a hundred times and revolutionize access to space, said Elon Musk.

The second stage of the rocket is a cigar-shaped object 15 meters in length and 3.66 meters in diameter. Without fuel, it weighs a little less than 5 tons. To bring the payload to a given orbit, the second-stage Merlin 1D engine worked for 6.5 minutes, then it performed braking.

In two previous launches, the descent from orbit was carried out over the Indian Ocean. It seems that this time, when braking the second stage, there was not enough fuel to obtain the same characteristics. This time it was necessary to leave some fuel in the first stage to try to land on a special barge, so there was more work for the second stage.

Due to differences in shape and mass, the fairings entered the atmosphere after a few days, and the second stage itself had an expected lifespan of about a week. Gradually, it was inhibited by the resistance of the upper atmosphere.

The characteristics of the entrance of objects depend on the level of the atmosphere, it decreases and increases depending on solar activity. At the same time, most of the objects (especially if it is a rocket stage with thin-walled bearing tanks) burn up at the entrance without harm to the population. Some parts of engines or tank pressurization systems can reach the surface of the Earth.

The American space services also determined the approximate time with an accuracy of ± 7 minutes and the entry point , and they turned out to be right: the time was predicted 21:46 UTC and a window over Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, Russia and the Pacific Ocean.