GRASSE (06) 29.08.2012

On 29 August 2012 at 06:00, a witness in Grasse was watching the sky, particularly Orion. For about 5 seconds, a bright light crossed the upper part of the constellation and continued in a straight line before gradually disappearing to the northeast. A check of Calsky satellite-pass records showed the very bright Chinese space station Tiangong-1 passing west to east just above Orion at that time; the source refers to a sky chart. Because the witness reported a southwest-to-northeast path, GEIPAN classifies the case B: probable observation of Tiangong-1.