EAS Space Junk is Toast, Re-Entry Over Pacific Ocean Likely

It looks like the Early Ammonia Servicer (EAS) that has been orbiting Earth for the past 15 months had a fight with the Earth’s atmosphere… and lost. Due to re-enter at some time today (Sunday), an eagle-eyed amateur astronomer noted when the EAS was due to make an orbital pass… but the ammonia-filled space station cast-off missed its November 2nd appointment.

Thomas Dorman of Horizon City, Texas, observed the object fly overhead on November 1st. Dorman was using a low-light camera to attempt to spot the speeding debris earlier today, “but the EAS did not appear,” he said. “I think it is safe to assume EAS has reentered.”

It is most likely that the EAS disintegrated and any surviving bits either fell into an ocean (somewhere) or dropped harmlessly in a sparsely populated region. No reports of a fireball or half a refrigerator randomly dropping into someone’s back yard have surfaced, so my money is on NASA’s reckoning that the EAS would fall harmlessly into water.

Update (Nov. 3rd):
News from SpaceWeather.com as to the location of re-entry:

US Space Command reports that the Early Ammonia Servicer (EAS) probably reentered Earth’s atmosphere on Nov. 3rd at 04:51:00 GMT +/- 1 minute over the following coordinates: 48° S, 151° E. That would place the fireball over the Indian Ocean [Pacific Ocean] south of Tasmania where sightings are unlikely.

Update (Nov. 4th):
Refer to Target Australia: The EAS Splashdown Location…

Aside: As it’s Sunday and I’ve not been writing much, I decided to have a dabble with Photoshop and create a quick visualization of what the EAS may look like as it’s falling through the atmosphere (above). I used NASA images for the Earth atmosphere backdrop and the original 2007 space station image of the EAS tumbling in space…

Source: SpaceWeather.com