ESA DLR ROSAT: Falls to Earth we know not where!

(Image: Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics)

As predicted, Germany's defunct ROSAT space telescope plummeted from Earth orbit over the weekend, burning up somewhere along a path over the Indian Ocean that headed towards Myanmar and China at around 02.00 GMT on 23 October.

As the satellite deorbited in daylight, no visual sightings of it were possible - and there are, as yet at least, no reports of any damage due to falling space debris.

Mission controllers at the German space agency still do not know precisely where any parts that did not burn up - and large parts were expected to survive - may have hit the Earth's surface. "We are still waiting for updates from our satellite tracking partners on the eastern and western sides of the world," says spokesman Andreas Schutz.

The lack of precise location information has caused consternation in the media, baffled by the dearth of data in the days of GPS. But it is likely that US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) knows exactly where ROSAT came down - because it has infrared-seeking satellites trained on the planet seeking signs of heat from ballistic missile launches.

The searing heat from a re-entering satellite should be readily apparent to these satellites but STRATCOM never quickly reveals what it knows (it took four or five days to reveal where NASA's UARS came down in September) as it might give an adversary clues about its tracking technology.

So the German space agency will have to wait until STRATCOM is good and ready to reveal all its data.