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sandworm101

Found it. Mystery over. What's the fine for littering in Vietnam?

http://www.aerospace.org/cords/reentry-predictions/upcoming-...

Launch on dec 11.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrQLacne89s

Mission profile and payload. Elektro-L No. 2 weather-forecasting satellite.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/elektro-l2.html

Edit: I think I was wrong about this being a blok-d upper. I think what came down over vietnam was the second stage of the rocket. This: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/zenit_stage2.html

Really BBC, do some digging before using the phrase "Space Balls" in a headline. It took like 40 minutes of googling to find everything about this debris.

View on HN

Three minutes later, the protective payload fairing was jettisoned, unveiling the spacecraft and the Fregat-SB upper stage.[1]

The stage is made up of six overlapping spherical sections, only four of which serve as propellant tanks. Two remaining spheres are actually instrument sections, one containing unpressurized avionics, which can function in vacuum of space and another, pressurized, section holding a flight control computer, which requires a temperature-controlled environment.

At least four spherical gas tanks with a diameter of 375 millimeters and a capacity of 23 liters are carried onboard Fregat. [2]

[1] http://www.alternative-learning.org/nl/wordpress/?p=4082 [2] http://www.russianspaceweb.com/fregat.html

I'm not sure either of us is correct. It did use a fregat upper stage, but that isn't what came down over vietnam. The fregat took the sat out to gto and wouldn't have come down so quickly.

Aerospace.org is calling it a "SL-23 Rocket Body". I think it was the second stage that actually came down after a few days in the intital/parking orbit. Fregat would be a third stage.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/zenit_stage2.html

> do some digging before using the phrase "Space Balls" in a headline

Au contraire, mon fraire, I hope and pray that the BBC finds reason to put Space Balls into more headlines. The world is a better place for it.

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