18-Year-Old Rocket Motor Found in Australian Outback

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This just in from ‘The Sky is Falling’ Department: NASA’s Orbital Debris Newsletter reports that a launch vehicle rocket motor casing was found by ranchers in the Australian Outback during a cattle round-up on a three million-acre pasture property. It was first spotted by Mr. Arthur Taylor who was flying a Cessna aircraft to look for stray cattle. The casing appeared in relatively good condition (see picture above) and did not seem to be very old. Mr. Michael White forwarded numerous photos of the object to the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office, including one with a clear serial number next to the nozzle attachment point. Using the serial number, NASA Kennedy Space Center personnel were able to trace the motor casing to a a specific mission.

The casing came from a Delta 2 rocket used on June 2, 1990 to launch the Indian INSAT-1D geosynchronous spacecraft from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. This solid rocket motor served as the launch vehicle’s third stage which carried the payload from a low altitude parking orbit into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. (If you want to trace it yourself, here are the particulars: U.S. Satellite Number 20645, International Designator 1990-051C), Reentry of the stage occurred a few months later.

This isn’t the first time rocket casings have been found in Australia, and this object joins similar solid rocket motor casings found in Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Argentina during the past several years.

Yikes!

Sources: CollectSpace, NASA’s Orbital Debris Program

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

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