Skylab still a threat to New Zealand?

Press, 18 April 1979, Page 18

Skylab still a threat to New Zealand?

Skylab, the American experimental space station which is orbiting the Earth on an eight-month mission, is expected to return to Earth in late June or early July. New Zealand’s chances of being hit are still in question. Mr W. J. O’Donnell, the chief of the United States’ National Aeronautic and Space Administration’s news media service, said that the point of re-entry to the Earth’s atmosphere

could still be anywhere between latitude 50deg. north and 50deg. south. “It will probably go down in the ocean. The chances that it will land in New Zealand are infinitesmal,” Mr O’Donnell said. The director of Invercargill’s astronomical observatory (Mr G. HallJones) said a year ago that New Zealand had a fairly good chance of being hit by Skylab. He said that he had cal-

culated that the chances of New Zealand’s being hit were one in 610. There was a one-in-120 chance that Skylab would land within New Zealand’s territorial limits, and a one-in-three chance of its landing within 45 minutes of passing New Zealand. Engineers at N.A.S.A. manoeuvred Skylab into a new attitude in January with the aim of reducing atmospheric drag and allowing some small measure of control over the reentry. The new position placed the satellite’s solar power panels constantly facing the sun, assuring full power which may allow some final re-entry cont r o 1 . However, Mr O’Donnell said that this control was likely to be minimal. “It is impossible to predict exactly where the pieces will land,” he said. A draft plan describing Civil Defence measures if satellite debris hits Christchurch was completed a year ago. The drafting of the document had been prompted by an incident where fragments of a nu-clear-powered Soviet satellite plunged into an isolated region of Canada, in early 1978.