Space debris returns

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33740, 13 January 1975, Page 13

Space debris returns

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

CAPE CANAVERAL (Florida), January 12. The biggest pieces of space debris ever to return to Earth made a fiery re-entry through the atmosphere yesterday, and were calculated to have plunged into the Atlantic, about 1000 miles west of Gibraltar, space agency officials said.

Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (N.A.S.A.), said that the second stage of the 41ton Saturn rocket which blasted the Skylab space station into orbit in May, 1973, probably broke into about 50 fragments before re-entry. ine biggest chunks expected to survive re-entry were parts of the 60001 b bulkhead, or the 30001 b engines. The smaller fragments, N.A.S.A. officials said last night, could have scattered over several hundred miles to the north-east or south-east of the calculated landing site.

The largest object tracked by North American Air Defence Command radar was followed through re-entry, but then went oir the screens, because of its angle of descent.

Officials were unable to say how much of it survived Ito land intact. I “We had a narrow escape I — thank heavens,” Radio I Madagascar said today, com'menting on a report that part of a space rocket plunged into the Indian Ocean probably no more than a few hundred miles from the island.

“The danger has passed now but it was very close to us,” the announcer said. The imminence of the debris falling in this region had been announced in the news media several days ago, causing some public alarm. A “ball of fire” fell from the sky in western Argentina early this morning into the Andes mountains with an explosion that shook buildings for miles around and lit I up nearby villages “as bright las day.” Witnesses, including people driving cars in the area, told Telam News Agency that the unidentified flying object fell towards the Earth in a north-to-south trajectory, growing more brilliant as it approached the ground.

Official sources said that patrols had been sent to investigate in the wild moun-

tain region where the fireball exploded but could not as yet sav what the object was. Sources speculated that it might have been the 25-ton American Saturn rocket.