Delta II second stage reentry

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Delta II

Second Stage Reentry

Could anything survive reentry?

YES!

On April 24, 1996 a Delta II rocket launched a U.S. Department of Defense satellite called the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) into a polar orbit from the Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The second stage from that launch reentered over the southern U.S. at 9:33 U.T. on January 22, 1997 and spread large pieces of debris over Texas and Oklahoma. The large 580 lb propellant tank, two nozzle pressurization spheres, and part of the structure survived reentry.

Two views of the 580 lb Delta II second stage propellant tank which landed 50 yards from an occupied farmhouse near Georgetown, Texas. Note the farmhouse in the upper photograph.

The Delta II second stage showing the propellant tank and red nozzle-pressurization spheres.

The Delta II second stage, stainless-steel propellant tank.

The MSX spacecraft was built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

South African Fall
At 13:30 U.T. on April 27, 2000 another Delta II second stage reentered over South Africa. The large propellant tank landed 37 km NE of Cape Town, and one nozzle-pressurization sphere was recovered 70 km ESE of the propellant tank in Lemoenpoort. The combustion chamber was recovered near the town of Robertson, 24 km ESE of the pressurization sphere. The second stage (NORAD 23834, 96019B) was from the launch of the Navstar GPS 2-25 satellite (SV No. 33) at 00:21:00 on March 28, 1996. My thanks to David Laney of the South African Astronomical Observatory for providing the details on the locations of the items and the time of the fall.

Ed Murphy,

emurphy@pha.jhu.edu

Last changed: May 15, 2000.