IAC Organized Airborne Mission to Observe WT1190F Reentry
The International Astronomical Center (IAC) and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency hosted a team of veteran U.S. and German observers of spacecraft re-entries to study a rare small-asteroid like collision with Earth’s atmosphere of an approximately 1 meter piece of space debris near Sri Lanka on 13 November 2015.
The team was able to find clear weather in a region with much cloudy weather and had a perfect view of the entry. The entry occurred close to the predicted time and place. Movie cameras recorded the breakup in great detail. The light was successfully analysed by spectrographic cameras, a first for this team to do in daylight conditions. The team gained much experience for a future small-asteroid impact mission.
