Identify mystery object

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

Almost certainly a rocket fairing of some persuasion. Probably one of those used on the Soyuz rockets.

Yeah, Soyuz would be the likely candidate:



EDIT: Unusual place for it though, since most if not all Soyuz launches are from Baikonur, must have fallen there on re-entry and maybe floated with the tides.

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Oberon

EDIT: Unusual place for it though, since most if not all Soyuz launches are from Baikonur, must have fallen there on re-entry and maybe floated with the tides.

True. Under normal launch conditions I don't think a fairing would get to the Atlantic ocean from Baikonur, but it should be possible if it was detached late or something. There have been a couple of Soyuz launches from French Guiana, too.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Raptor1

There have been a couple of Soyuz launches from French Guiana, too.

Could have been a polar orbital launch, or quite possibly a launch from ages ago that has only just dropped low enough for re-entry. There's a lot up there after all.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Oberon

or quite possibly a launch from ages ago that has only just dropped low enough for re-entry. There's a lot up there after all.

Wouldn't those be scorched at best and completely disintegrated at worst after re-entry? They aren't made for that after all.
What about a test ICBM launch from some submarine? Couldn't those lose a cowl? Would make more sense to me with no space port in the area and there are lots of exercises going on now in Nato and Russia.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

Wouldn't those be scorched at best and completely disintegrated at worst after re-entry? They aren't made for that after all.
What about a test ICBM launch from some submarine? Couldn't those lose a cowl? Would make more sense to me with no space port in the area and there are lots of exercises going on now in Nato and Russia.

The diameter looks a bit big for an SLBM. Trident II first stage diameter is about 2.11m, and the Russian SLBMs are about the same. By the picture I'd wager that this is wider than that, more akin to the nearly 3m of the R7 fairing.

In regards to burning up, it varies sometimes and if you look at the fairing in the painting I posted above, you'll see that there's bits of it beyond what they've found, so it could be that part of it did burn up and what they've found is what survived re-entry. I mean, look at when Colombia burnt up, some obscure things survived re-entry, including bits of astronaut.

[Oberon]

I reckon Aktungbby might have a good lead there.

I do love Russian rocket designs, there's something of a brute elegance to them.


EDIT: Yeah, look at this fairing here:



If you look at the front of it you can see two circular areas, one presumably is a part of the seperation of the clamshell, since there's a hole there on the debris that's found, but just below/above in both pictures is the circle.

[Aktungbby]

Jeeze! an 'I reckon' from Oberon in the rocket dept!! Alas! I cannot do this well in the Who/What/Where game! Still came down to the 12 square attach points(per side) to the cone halves for me though-good thing too; that's as high as I can count!

[Aktungbby]

??? I count twelve square attachment points on each side in the nose cone: Resurs-P2 spacecraft in June 2008, it was promised to fly in December 2013 and in the spring of 2012, the mission was still expected in the fourth quarter of 2013.

this one launched 12/26/ 2014 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan