Friday night, Luca Parmitano looked out the window of the International Space Station and saw a very peculiar cloud hovering above the limb of the Earth. He thought it might be a rocket contrail, but with most NASA employees furloughed due to the government shutdown, no launches were scheduled. Nor were any U.S. commercial rocket launches set to go.
Turns out Russia was testing its new Topol/SS-25 missile which launched on Oct. 10 from the Sary Shagan test site in Kazakhstan. According to a representative of the Strategic Rocket Forces, the test was used to confirm characteristics of the Topol missile, to test the systems of the Sary Shagan test site, and “to test new combat payload for intercontinental ballistic missiles.” The rocket has a range of 6,800 miles (11,000 km). The test was successful.
What Parmitano and the other astronauts saw was a huge cloud-like contrail left by the rocket above the atmosphere. Wish I could see stuff like that out my window.
The photo may remind you of another weird cloud connected with a failed rocket test from a Russian submarine in December 2009.
After launch, the rocket developed problems and spun out of control while venting fuel in the stratosphere. Lit by the sun at dawn, Norwegians savvy enough to look skyward that morning saw a spectacular, otherwordly spiral. Click HERE to read how it all came down.