Wait... There's a Kenyan Space Agency?

Have they flown anything?  Are they working toward flying something? 

Almost two weeks ago, December 30, reports started to surface about a "glowing ring of metal" that fell from the sky near a remote village in Kenya. 

According to the Kenya Space Agency, the object weighed 1,100 pounds (500 kg) and had a diameter of more than 8 feet (2.4 meters) when measured after it landed on December 30. A couple of days later, the space agency confidently reported that the object was a piece of space debris, saying it was a ring that separated from a rocket. "Such objects are usually designed to burn up as they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere or to fall over unoccupied areas, such as the oceans," the space agency told The New York Times.

At around eight feet in diameter and half a ton, it clearly wasn't your typical "bits and pieces" that survive reentry but in addition to its pure size, it's also pretty distinctive looking.

A view of the metal ring that fell from the sky on Dec. 30 into Mukuku village in eastern Makueni County, Kenya.  Credit: Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images

Since those initial reports, a group of amateur but experienced space trackers have been trying to determine what space object it might have fallen from.  There's still no answer to that, and a couple of interesting twists to the story. 

Let's start here:

"It was suggested that the ring is space debris, but the evidence is marginal," wrote Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. McDowell is highly regarded for his analysis of space objects. "The most likely space-related possibility is the reentry of the SYLDA adapter from the Ariane V184 flight, object 33155. Nevertheless, I am not fully convinced that the ring is space debris at all," he wrote.

Another prominent space tracker, Marco Langbroek, believes it's plausible that the ring came from space, so he investigated further into objects that may have returned around the time of the object's discovery in Kenya. In a blog post written Wednesday he noted that apart from the metal ring, other fragments looking consistent with space debris—including material that looks like carbon wrap and isolation foil—were found several kilometers away from the ring.

First of all both McDowell and Langbroek have graced these pages before (two examples there).  Second they both agree that the most likely source for the object was an Ariane V that was launched back in July 2008, in which the European rocket lofted two satellites into geosynchronous transfer orbit. The Ariane V had some unique features, one of which was to stack two satellites going into geosynchronous orbit

To accommodate both satellites, a SYstème de Lancement Double Ariane (SYLDA) shell was placed over the lower satellite to support the mounting of a second satellite on top of it.

Both McDowell and Langbroek speculate the recovered ring is part of the SYLDA from this mission 16 years ago.  But here's where it gets more interesting.

However, an anonymous X account using the handle DutchSpace, which despite the anonymity has provided reliable information about Ariane launch vehicles in the past, posted a thread that indicates this ring could not have been part of the SYLDA shell. With images and documentation, it seems clear that neither the diameter nor mass of the SYLDA component matches the ring found in Kenya.

Additionally, Arianespace officials told Le Parisien newspaper on Thursday that they do not believe the space debris was associated with the Ariane V rocket. Essentially, if the ring does not fit, you must acquit.

(Never thought you'd get an OJ Simpson reference in a space story, did ya?)

At this point, the narrative goes cold.  As Eric Berger at Ars Technica ends his piece, "so what was it?"  While we can't rule out that "it wuz Aliens," we have to recognize that probability isn't known but we believe it to be very low.  Therefore, we have to ask what else is up there that can't be tracked to a known, documented launch that could both be used "open source" and could have dropped a half ton part without warning.  One simple phrase: spy satellites.  Well, the satellites and the upper stages of the rockets that got them to orbit.  May as well use the old cliché line, "we could tell you but then we'd have to kill you."  (Which I always thought was really "I could tell you, but then 'they' would have to kill me.")