Look Out! Another Dead Satellite Set to Hit Earth?
Another defunct space satellite is set to crash land on Earth in early November.
The Roentgen Satellite (ROSAT) is a German X-ray space observatory that was previously decommissioned, and now is set to crash down to earth.
ROSAT's star tracker faced complications in 1998 when the satellite's onboard camera pointed directly at the sun in 1998. That incident damaged it beyond repair and it received its decommission status soon after in February 1999.
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According to officials at the German Aerospace Center, the fallen satellite will tumble to Earth sometime in early November, but it's still too early to pinpoint exactly when and where debris from the satellite will land.
Reports say that the 2.4-ton spacecraft's orbit extends from the latitudes of 53 degrees north and south. This means that the satellite's blast radius could fall into any areas stretching from Canada to South America.
Official details of ROSAT's descent won't be known until two hours before the event.
Thirty large pieces of the satellite could possibly survive the tumultuous journey into Earth's atmosphere. About 1.6 tons of the satellite components could reach the planet's surface, according to German Aerospace officials.
Heiner Klinkrad, head of the Space Debris Office at the European Space Agency, provided his analysis in a webcast posted on the German Aerospace Center's website: "It is not possible to accurately predict ROSAT's re-entry. The uncertainty will decrease as the moment of re-entry approaches. It will not be possible to make any kind of reliable forecast about where the satellite will actually come down until about one or two hours before the fact."
German Aerospace officials stated that the debris from ROSAT will fall back to Earth over a 50-mile (80-kilometer) wide path. The largest piece of debris is expected to be the telescope's heat resistant mirror. The officials note that the odds of it hitting someone or causing property damage are extremely remote. The risks are small, just like NASA'S UARS.
NASA's 6-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) entered Earth's orbit and crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean on last Saturday. No reports of physical injury or property damage have been reported.
