Falcon 9 Reenters Earth Atmosphere
Department:
Privatizing Spaceflight
Teaser:
"After riding a flame into Earth orbit more than three weeks ago, the dormant upper stage of the first Falcon 9 rocket plunged back into the atmosphere Sunday."
Source:
SPACE.com Download time: Jun 29 2010 12:05 PM ET
After riding a flame into Earth orbit more than three weeks ago, the dormant upper stage of the first Falcon 9 rocket plunged back into the atmosphere Sunday, a fiery finale for the historic privately-developed spacecraft.
The rocket and its dummy payload around 0050 GMT Sunday (8:50 p.m. EDT Saturday), according to U.S. military tracking data, but the margin of error is roughly two hours in either direction.
At 0050 GMT Sunday, the truck-sized vehicle would have streaked back into the atmosphere and burned up over Iraq and Syria. But the uncertainty in the exact re-entry time means the rocket and Dragon capsule could have come back to Earth anywhere along its ground track for more than two orbits.…
See SPACE.com for links to further info.
