Re: Kupon platform re-entry aftermath

Robert Knight (rknight@escape.com)
Tue, 18 Nov 1997 17:35:46 -0500

Has anyone integrated the following AP report from Japan with the
Canadian/Northwestern sightings of the SL-12 re-entry?  Apparently,
there must have been quite an extensive trail...

--Robert Knight (73N57 40N43)

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Suspected satellite launcher fragment falls in southern Japan
Associated Press, 11/13/97 13:03 EST

TOKYO (AP) - Fishermen in southern Japan saw a shining object fall into
the ocean Thursday night, and Japanese coast guard officials said they
believe it was a fragment from a Russian satellite launcher. 
    The fishermen were on a boat in the Pacific Ocean about 40 miles
east of Japan's southwestern island of Tanegashima only minutes before a
fragment was expected to fall in northern Japan, said an official with
the Maritime Safety Agency. 
    Earlier Thursday, the Defense Agency was notified by U.S. forces in
Japan that a fragment of a Russian SL-12 satellite launcher would fall
near Kushiro, on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, 530 miles
northeast of Tokyo. 
    The Maritime Safety Agency said it planned to send a plane Friday to
investigate the object. 

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     +-----+                                              
     | | | |        "The operating system IS the virus!"  
     | | | |         ----------------------------------   
     | | | |                    Robert Knight              
     | | | |                                              
     +-----+                  rknight@escape.com          
  WINDOW$ 95/98        http://www.escape.com/~rknight/    
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Craig Cholar wrote:
> 
> Something I did find intriguing were the multiple claims that NORAD said
> the object crashed into the Pacific.  That does seem to contradict many
> eyewitnesses who saw the debris trail go inland.  I suppose it's possible
> the lighter debris continued on, with the heavier pieces falling into the
> Pacific.  Is there an official NORAD announcement on the net?  I poked
> around http://www.spacecom.af.mil/norad and didn't find one.
>