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04 January 2007, 15:13
Russian Rocket (SL-4) Comes Down Over Wyo (NORAD said).
A spent Russian booster rocket re-entered the atmosphere Thursday over Colorado and Wyoming
 North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is a joint organization of the United States and Canada which provides aerospace warning and control for North America. It was founded on May 12, 1958, as the North American Air Defense Command. Since 1963, NORAD's main technical facility has been the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center in Colorado, and for this reason NORAD is sometimes unofficially referred to as Cheyenne Mountain. A spent Russian booster rocket re-entered the atmosphere Thursday over Colorado and Wyoming, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said.
NORAD's main facilities in Colorado are administered by the U.S. Air Force under the command of the 721st Mission Support Group, part of the 21st Space Wing, headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base. Eyewitnesses reported seeing flaming objects in the sky at the time the rocket was re-entering, NORAD spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Sean Kelly said.
 "It was pretty spectacular," said Riverton Police Capt. Mark Stone, who said he saw the burning object while he was retrieving his newspaper. "My first concern is that we had some sort of aircraft that was coming down. It was definitely leaving a burning debris trail behind it."
At the end of the Cold War NORAD reassessed its mission. To avoid cutbacks, from 1989 NORAD operations expanded to cover counter-drug operations, especially the tracking of small aircraft. But the DEW line sites were still replaced, in a scaled-back fashion by the North Warning System radars between 1986 and 1995. The Cheyenne Mountain site was also upgraded. However, none of the proposed OTH-B radars are currently in operation. Stone said he could tell it was fairly large object, but it was too high to make out exactly what it was.
After September 11, the NORAD mission evolved to include monitoring of all aircraft flying in the interior of the United States. NORAD oversees Operation Noble Eagle using fighter aircraft Combat Air Patrols (CAP) under command of First Air Force and Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) E-3 Sentry aircraft under command of the 552nd Air Control Wing. At U.S. request, NATO deployed five of its NATO AWACS aircraft to the U.S. to help NORAD in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Kelly said the agency was unable to confirm a report that a piece of the rocket may have hit the ground near Riverton, Wyo., at about 6 a.m. MST.
The Commander of NORAD is always American and simultaneously heads USNORTHCOM, while the Deputy Commander is Canadian. No damage was reported, and any debris that may have hit the ground was not believed to be hazardous, NORAD said.
NORAD comes to public attention at Christmas, when it tracks Santa Claus on his journey around the world delivering toys for the world's children. 2005 marked the 50th time of NORAD tracking Santa. NORAD identified the rocket as an SL-4 that had been used to launch a French space telescope in December, and Kelly said U.S. spacewatchers knew the rocket was coming down.
"Objects falling from space are almost an everyday occurrence," Kelly said.
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