Just before 11:00 PM tonight a SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule reentered the atmosphere above western Georgia. The Dragon had departed from the International Space Station shortly after 9:00 AM this morning and was headed for a splashdown in the Atlantic ocean just off the coast of Florida. About three minutes after passing overhead the sonic boom was heard.
The Dragon and its plasma trail disappears several times when it passes behind trees
About 30 minutes prior to reentry SpaceX tweeted this:
To be honest even though I knew the Dragon was coming back I hadn’t looked at the ground track since all of the recent reentries had been over Mexico and Florida. I quickly pulled up the Orbitron satellite tracking program on the computer and saw the following:
Knowing that was the on orbit track, and knowing it was going to splashdown off the east coast of Florida, I guessed the actual track was going to be very close to directly overhead. Sure enough, it passed just north of Cataula. Since it took the sonic boom roughly three minutes to reach the ground I’m guessing the altitude was around 40 miles (211k feet) when it passed over.