What makes you think it is 'bus sized?' The object concerned is roughly the size of a shoe or boot.
Order of Kilopi
What makes you think it is 'bus sized?' The object concerned is roughly the size of a shoe or boot.
Established Member
"Bus sized" was the description of the object which was included at the site with the video as follows...
"For the bus-sized object to keep pace with the ISS, it would need to be travelling at around 7.8 kilometers-per-second."
Where did you see comments about it being shoe or boot size?
ETA : Cubesats are about the size of a shoe...though the object does not appear to be cube shaped.
Last edited by Spacedude; 2020-Mar-01 at 03:48 PM.
Order of Kilopi
Cube sats are not all single cubes. That is why I mentioned boots. These satellites are definitely not 'bus-sized'.Originally Posted by Spacedude
"Bus sized" was the description of the object which was included at the site with the video as follows...
"For the bus-sized object to keep pace with the ISS, it would need to be travelling at around 7.8 kilometers-per-second."
Where did you see comments about it being shoe or boot size?
ETA : Cubesats are about the size of a shoe...though the object does not appear to be cube shaped.
Last edited by eburacum45; 2020-Mar-01 at 10:36 PM.
Established Member
The ballon is relatively stationary. The movement is the aircraft that the pilots are flying.
Established Member
The OP photo has been resolved as most likely being a balloon of some type. The 22 minute video from the ISS is a real head scratcher, especially as it appears to maintain it's pace below the ISS and then rapidly maneuver upward under its own power.
Order of Kilopi
So how do they know it's bus-sized?
The comment about the velocity is naive, since anything released from the ISS would keep pace with it without having to acquire velocity.
Given that the narrator is constantly fiddling with the frame rate, it's difficult to tell, but it looks to me like what you'd expect from something shed by the ISS. The small relative velocity puts the dropped object into an orbit with slightly different eccentricity, and so we see it pace the ISS in a lower orbit, but slowly draw ahead and then cross in front. The apparent angular velocity is highest during the orbit-crossing phase. It'll then be outpaced by the ISS, cross behind it, and repeat. Depending on the difference in orbital period, that could go on for a while.
A single "manoeuvre", from slowly drawing ahead in a flanking position lower than the ISS, to crossing ahead of the ISS, should take quarter of an orbital period. Which would be about 90/4 = 22.5 minutes. Hmmmmm.
Grant Hutchison
Last edited by grant hutchison; 2020-Mar-02 at 03:33 PM.
Member
I think it is most likely a bit of foil or other debris that came off of the ISS or one of its docking craft. I see no accelerated movement by the object, merely camera zoom/angle changes.
Edit: Wrote this prior to reading Grant's post. Obviously, I agree with your synopsis.
Established Member
Good to hear some rational evaluations about the ISS video, I could only go by the descriptions from the site which is why I used phrases such as "appears to". Any NASA members here who may want to add their perspective as to what is going on, ISS debris? A releasing of a classified DOD satellite, etc?
Order of Kilopi
Why would you film the release of something classified and then publicly share that video?
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
Order of Kilopi
Is this not a launch of a Cubesat, then? Sometimes it looks very like a double, or even triple, cube.
Established Member
From the article it sounds like this was a recording of a live feed from the ISS and not a NASA release? It may be just a fluke that the camera caught this object in view, or if it was a released satellite it should be easy for NASA to clear up, unless it was really classified. So far this hasn't been in the media/news so it may likely fall into the waste bin full of other similar film clips.
Order of Kilopi
At times, it looks a bit like HTV-2
https://missiledefenseadvocacy.org/m...onic-missiles/
Order of Kilopi
The answer seems to be that it was a planned jettison of a retired communications component.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...ature=emb_logo
As usual, many hoax promoters shared the same video from the ISS Live Feed uploaded on Feb. 21, 2020 claiming that NASA filmed and tracked a UFO for 22 minutes.
First hypothesis was about a satellite deployment (CubeSat), but thanks to youtubers Willease and Apaiss here's the explanation: it was a component, called ICS Exposed Facility (ICS-EF), part of Kibo's Inter-Orbit Communication System, which was jettisoned by the Canadian robotic arm, as reported by ISS Daily Summary Report:
Order of Kilopi
Here's a diagram of the component before jettison; the dark grey part labelled ICS Exposed Facility (ICS). it looks larger than a shoe (or even a shoebox) but considerably smaller than a bus. It looks like something about as large as a fridge.
This was launched aboard STS 127 in 2009 but is now redundant.
Last edited by eburacum45; 2020-Mar-08 at 03:07 PM.
Established Member
Thx eburacum45 for clearing that up, your linked video also helped resolve the question on the supposed acceleration.
Member
There was also live feed that covered most of the preparations prior to jettison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv9v-lhRYfY
Order of Kilopi
Very hard to tell the size of something in space--save for the amount of detail.
Order of Kilopi
No, that doesn't work. A small, close object with lots of detail looks similar to a large distant object with a similar amount of visible detail. There is no atmospheric haze in space, so you can't use that to determine the distance.
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