Satellite debris ‘may land on N.Z.’

Press, 22 February 1978, Page 16

Satellite debris ‘may land on N.Z.’

PA Invercargill. New Zealand has a “fairly good” chance of being hit by America’s giant Syklab satellite if, as expected, it plummets out of orbit in an uncontrolled return to the Earth next year or in 1980, according to an expert. New Zealand has narrowly missed previous such incidents, including the recent crash in Canada of the Soviet Cosmos 954. The director of Invercargill’s astronomical observatory (Mr G. HallJones) has calculated that the chances of New Zealand’s being hit are one in 610. He says there is a one-in-120 chance that it will land within this country’s territorial limits, and one-in-three chance of its landing within 45 minutes of passing New Zealand. “Every possible effort must be made to save Skylab,” Mr Hall-Jones says. The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration reported this month that

pieces of the 85-tonne satellite — the largest manmade satellite now orbiting the Earth — were expected to plunge into the Earth’s atmosphere some time between late northern summer, 1979, and mid-1980. N.A.S.A. is not expected to be able to predict the precise re-entry point before the event. Three weeks in advance they should know. the time to within 24 hours, and by the penultimate day they should be able to say the pieces will fall somewhere along the ground-track of any one of three stated orbits. Scientists are now studying the possibility of sending up a spacecraft that could latch on to Skylab and either haul it back out into space, or control its return to Earth. Launched in 1973, the satellite has dropped some 32km since then, and now orbits about 400 km above the Earth. American scientists have been steadily reducing their estimates of Skylab’s life in orbit,

according to the N.A.S.A. report. Although the craft will be mostly destroyed on reentry, several tonnes are expected to get through. The only basis for the N.A.S.A. statement that Skylab will probably hit the sea, is that its orbit is mainly over the ocean. Asked about the chances of New Zealand’s being on the receiving end, Mr Hall-Jones said they were “fairly good.”