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My meteor cameras in Chelmsford recorded a very bright and slow object this morning (Feb 19) at 03:44 UTC. This was the uncontrolled re-entry of a Falcon 9 upper stage which started over the Irish Sea and ended up dumping some debris (a helium pressurisation tank called a COPV) on Poland. The stage was from the Starlink 11-4 launch from Vandenberg at 23:02 on Feb 1. Normally the stage actively deorbits safely but that failed in this case. The re-entry was widely seen over the UK.
https://x.com/planet4589/status/1892178779746791890/photo/1
I wonder how an insurance claim would go against Space-x?
Nick.
Here’s the video from my UK004D camera which points NW. The hazy sky was brightly moonlit but the re-entry is detectable as a faint object emerging from the tree at the bottom left. It brightens and leaves a strong ionisation trail but there is no sign of breakup this early in the track.
https://nickdjames.com/Spacecraft/2025_022Y_reentry/UK004D_20250119_0343_ndj.mp4
This is the re-entry prediction:
https://aerospace.org/reentries/62878
The stage should have been actively de-orbited from its very low orbit (around 300km) but actually decayed naturally in an uncontrolled way. The COPV tank seems quite robust and has survived re-entry previously so one more thing to worry about.
Very nice video.
I wonder how an insurance claim would go against Space-x?
or lodge a claim with DOGE (Department of Geophysical Events)
My Camera [6 year old ex Security] located in Loudwater Valley adjacent to M40Jn3.. videoed the progress of the rocket for a minute or so across the valley.. Misty clouds all over.. but hopefully Polaris is to be seen to the right of the date/time..
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Quite by chance I saw this arc across essentially the whole sky; it passed overhead here at Brinkhill, Lincs. Excellent video from Nick.
Pick up by our two meteor cameras in Nottignham, and if it is the same lump which landed in poland, this is a rough ground track (no scientific data used for this, just me and Microsoft Paint).
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Given the site the tank ended up is known, is all this information used to refine the models for predicting where actual metoerites land?
“Speared” the Moon on my SE facing UK006E meteorcamera from Edinburgh
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I captured it on a couple of my south-facing video meteor cameras – UK000J (RMS) and Leeds_SE (UFO). The composite still image is from Leeds_SE and its 20s video can be viewed at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l6sqzoyORg
From my location it travelled from R to L.
Alex.
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