alexpgp | I'm wondering...

To make room for the Soyuz when it will be relocated on Thursday, the ISS crew undocked the old Progress cargo vehicle yesterday. The old Progress was then deorbited according to plan sometime short of 7 pm last night. Everything went nominally, and I heard the exchange in which the MCC in Moscow reported the coordinates at which whatever was left after reentry splashed down in the Pacific.

I didn't really pay attention to the coordinates, but I wonder if they might be not far from where a Lan Chile Airbus A340 was flying last night:

Flaming space junk narrowly misses jet
28th March 2007, 11:15 WST

Pieces of space junk from a Russian satellite coming out of orbit narrowly missed hitting a jetliner over the Pacific Ocean overnight.

The pilot of a Lan Chile Airbus A340, which was travelling between Santiago, Chile, and Auckland, New Zealand, notified air traffic controllers at Auckland Oceanic Centre after seeing flaming space junk hurtling across the sky just five nautical miles in front of and behind his plane about 10pm last night.

Hmmm. Assuming that the time quoted in the story is also WST (UT+0800), then 2200 WST on 27 March would be... 0900 EDT on the same day?

If that's the case, it can't be the same "space junk."

I guess I'll find out later today.

Cheers...