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Comment by Osmium | Hacker News Reader

This has been discussed further here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/1nfl59/spacetrack_is...

Quote from SpaceX via twitter.com/spacecom:

"We have no reason to believe there was an explosion of any kind [of second stage]. Based on previous launch experiences we do know it's common for the first measurements from Space-Track to not always be accurate. It usually takes a few days for them to sort it all out and that's with fewer objects to track."

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Also it was said that there was an anomaly on second stage relight resulting in a lot of unburnt fuel to be expelled creating a gas cloud.

This can be seen here. http://wikkit.tumblr.com/post/62684205892/tracking-a-new-spa...

Seems like thats all this is.

Makes sense. I can't really think of what could've exploded on the second-stage without also causing the entire vehicle to be obliterated. Whereas a bunch of globs of kerosene fuel would promptly freeze and be highly reflective.

The gas cloud could apparently be seen from the ground. Someone snapped a pic from Reunion island, near Madagascar: http://wikkit.tumblr.com/post/62684205892/tracking-a-new-spa...

EDIT: Here's more pics from South Africa http://uforsa.co.za/2013/09/mass-ufo-sighting-on-29-septembe...

Thanks for the reddit link, I hadn't seen this discussed anywhere other than on the SeeSat mailing list. Even on that list there isn't consensus on what this debris field means, if anything.

The zarya.info article is rather breathless and conspiratorial but was the best I could find at the time.

I'm in no position to dispute the author's technical competency, but on the basis of a series of haranguing messages I received from him after making a small space-related thingy (http://wheresthatsat.com), I believe he does regard US-based space activities (including everything from NASA to commercial enterprise to hobbyists like me) with blanket disdain. That's consistent, for better or worse, with the conspiratorial tone you note.

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