posted 01-02-2025 03:33 PM               

Fragments of Space Obiect That Fell and Landed in Mukuku Village, Makueni County on Monday 30 December 2024

The Kenya Space Agency (KS) wishes to address the recent incident involving a metallic object that fell from the skies and landed in Mukuku Village, Mukuku Sublocation, Nduluku Location, Waia Division, Mbooni East Sub-County, Makueni County, on Monday, 30/12/2024, at around 1500hrs [7:00 a.m. EST or 1300 GMT].

The Agency wishes to clarify that the object, a metallic ring measuring approximately 2.5 meters in diameter and weighing about 500 kg, is a fragment of a space object.

Preliminary assessments indicate that the fallen object is a separation ring from a launch vehicle (rocket). Such objects are usually designed to burn up as they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere or to fall over unoccupied areas, such as the oceans. This is an isolated case, which the Agency will investigate and address using the established framework under the International Space law.

On receipt of the information on the morning of Tuesday 31 December 2024, KSA officials rushed to the scene and, working alongside a multi-agency team and local authorities, secured the area and retrieved the debris, which is now under the Agency's custody for further investigation.

The Agency wishes to thank the local residents of Mukuku village for their prompt action in reporting the incident to the authorities and for their cooperation in ensuring public safety. We express our gratitude to the local leadership, the multi-agency team, the Makueni County Government, and media houses for disseminating this critical information in a timely manner.

We want to assure the public that the object poses no immediate threat to safety. Our experts will analyze the object, use existing frameworks to identify the owner, and keep the public informed of the next steps and outcomes.

KSA remains committed to fostering safe and responsible space activities for Kenyan entities operating within Kenya or from outside Kenya. We urge the public to report any suspicious objects or unusual occurrences promptly to the relevant authorities.

posted 01-04-2025 08:02 AM               

The size precludes sounding rockets.

Kourou and Canaveral are several thousands of miles away, and therefore the damage to the part would have been more apparent.

posted 01-05-2025 06:00 PM               

1. Reentry of Ariane 5 Sylda double payload adapter from launcher L541, flight V184(object 33155). Maybe.

   Rocket Ariane 5 L541 launched Protostar 1 and Badr 6 on 2008 Jul 7. The upper stage is 5.5m in diameter, so it seems too large. However the upper part of the Sylda adapter has smaller diameter sections. As far as I can see they don't match the reported 2.5m. diameter but I could be wrong there.

   Space Force reports reentry occurred on Dec 30, sometime between 2038 and 2238 UTC, well after the Kenya report.

   However there were no orbit data reported after Dec 23. The orbit on that data was elliptical, around 146 x 1923 km. Such orbits have significant uncertainty near reentry This means we can't really be confident about when and where it reentered, especially if Space Force's estimate is really just an extrapolation of data from a week previously.

   The orbit was equatorial and it did pass over Nairobi at 1118 UTC. Makueni County seems to be a bit south of the southernmost extent of the object's orbit but the reports on the location are not really precise - a good latitude and longitude would be nice.

2. Reentry of US rocket stage Centaur AC-167 (28385). Maybe.

   AC-167 was launched on 2004 Aug 31 by Atlas IIAS from Canaveral, carrying a secret NRO satellite.

   Reentry was reported by Space Force to have happened at 2130 UTC on Dec 30, over 108E 55N, inconsistent in both time and space with the Kenya report. Space Force continued issuing new orbital data at around 1500 UTC, three hours after the Kenya event.

   But perhaps the Space Force data is incorrect, or a piece came off a bit earlier. In fact, object 28385 passed directly over Makueni County at 0711 UTC (10:11 am Kenya time), about 5 hours before the reported event.

   The Centaur stage is 3.1 metres in diameter. But the forward adapter has a conical section and maybe it has a smaller diameter ring like this.

posted 01-05-2025 09:42 PM               

The Artemis Accords also require member nations to take responsibility over tracking their hardware and "plan for the mitigation of orbital debris, including the safe, timely, and efficient passivation and disposal of spacecraft at the end of their missions."

posted 01-07-2025 09:55 PM            

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posted 01-10-2025 10:32 AM               

...prominent space tracker Marco Langbroek concluded that the most likely source for the object was an Ariane V launch that took place back in July 2008, in which the European rocket lofted two satellites into geosynchronous transfer orbit.

The Ariane V rocket was a rather unique rocket in that it was designed with the capacity to launch two medium-sized satellites into geostationary transfer orbit, a destination much more popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s than it is today. To accommodate both satellites, a SYstème de Lancement Double Ariane, or SYLDA, shell was placed over the lower satellite to support the mounting of a second satellite on top of it. During the launch in 2008, this SYLDA shell was ejected into a 1.6-degree inclined geosynchronous transfer orbit, Langbroek said.

However, an anonymous Twitter account using the handle DutchSpace, which despite the anonymity has provided reliable information about Ariane launch vehicles in the past, posted a thread that indicates this ring could not have been part of the SYLDA shell. With images and documentation, it seems clear that neither the diameter nor mass of the SYLDA component matches the ring found in Kenya.

Additionally, Arianespace officials told Le Parisien newspaper on Thursday that they do not believe the space debris was associated with the Ariane V rocket.

posted 01-10-2025 12:40 PM               

The closest I can match it to is the forward inner component of a Pratt & Whitney GTF engine nacelle. This engine is used by Kenya Airways on their old second-hand Embraer E190s.

posted 01-11-2025 01:38 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Axman:
The US paid out $2 million in compensation.

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That must have been some cow!

posted 01-11-2025 06:58 AM               

I agree that loss of an engine nacelle does not have to be catastrophic on a wing mounted engine, more so on aft fuselage mounted engine as departure could take out the h stab and pitch control. I would think a nacelle loss in flight would result in a passenger photo and media coverage.

posted 01-11-2025 08:25 AM               

I too am troubled by the amount of scalloped slots on the ring. The only engineering drawing I've seen is only a cross-section and therefore gives a very similar profile, but obviously does not indicate how many slots there are.

And also one would expect if an engine fell apart, no matter how innocuously, there would be some press coverage - but then again, I was on a British Airways flight from Charles deGaulle to Osaka which had a stopover in Alaska in December 1980, and we had to transfer airplanes because the weight of ice on the engine caused the underneath to fall off. There was no press coverage about that either, I know because I was surprised to find no mention at the time.

posted 01-11-2025 08:45 AM               

The charring/heat damage looks minimal and not really consistent with re-entry from orbit.

Scattered damage over many miles is also possible for an aircraft engine suffering structural degradation.

Carbon fibres and advanced foils can be found in both spacecraft and aircraft.

My particular beef is with the size of the thing. It is far too large for a sounding rocket, and far too small for an orbital rocket component.