Space Tourism Rocket Failure

Witness' say that Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo exploded during a test flight.

In an ABC News release that the space tourism craft was released from its shepherding plane (that  is used to carry it to high altitude) ignited its rocket motor and then exploded seconds later.

Witnesses put the wreckage in the desert north of Mojave Air and Space Port.

CHP's report states that there was one fatality and one major injury.  (SpaceShipTwo is flown by two pilots.)

Virgin Galactic has said little more than to confirm the loss of the craft but has given no details.
More ABC US news 

US Erases Russian Grunt Radar Data After Accusations?!

Have you heard this one? A couple of days ago a friend told me that the Russians were blaming the US of blasting their Phobos Grunt probe with radar making it unable to get a fix on its' position and therefor crashing back into the Pacific ocean. I really thought it was the height of paranoia and an effort from those in control to cover their collective asses from the Russian government that said heads would roll for this mistake. So I just disregarded it as ranting when I heard about the radar connection. But then our government does something so patently suspicious you have to ask, what were they thinking? It seems, according to the Gizmodo article:

• After Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin accused the United States of being the main suspect in rendering their Phobos-Grunt Mars spacecraft useless, the United States Strategic Command has mysteriously deleted all the spaceship's data from their Space Track database.

Really?  In plain sight?!!  Its not like Space Track is some super secret site:

• Space Track is an unclassified but password-protected site. It tracks every object in orbit, publishing timely data about their position. The data is publicly available to more than 39,000 users in more than one hundred countries around the world.

Not exactly a place to pull a stunt that is clearly against Space Track policy.  

Gizmodo article

UARS incomming!

Friday afternoon is the latest for the NASA Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) will fall to Earth. No info yet where, but "certain" North America is not a "target"

Here is a YouTube video I found on IO9 showing the orbital path.

Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite Will Soon Visit Lower Atmosphere

NASA's 6.5-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite will be re-entering Earth's atmosphere in what NASA has described as "an uncontrolled fall" (don't you just love these euphemisms?) — but precisely when and where the satellite will re-enter remains a mystery. (excuse me but is this not the very nature of an uncontrolled fall?)

It is a bit too early to say with any accuracy where or what exactly will come down. There is little doubt that some of the satellite will make landfall sometime between late September and early October.

From the article:

• Much of the satellite which measures 35 feet long and 15 feet wide, is expected to burn up in Earth's atmosphere, but at least one computer analysis has predicted that as many as 26 components — weighing in at a total of over 1100 pounds — will actually break atmosphere and make landfall, falling within an estimated debris footprint length of 500 miles.

Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite article

Baloon Launched Observatory Destroyed

In a spectaular crash, today in Alice Springs, a territory of in northern Australia, over 2 million dollars in a painstakingly built telescope. The Nuclear Compton Telescope (NCT), a gamma-ray telescope was to be carried aloft by a huge helium balloon.

The research balloon was built by NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas was expected to haul its two-telescope payload up to an altitude of about 120,000 feet, but failed to lift the payload more than a few feet at which time the payload crashed back to earth and was dragged several hundred of feet.

View the raw film of the crash here
Original Space.com article here Lots of images

Thanks to Tim Sayell for the link