Massive satellite completes fall toward Earth over Pacific Ocean near Hawaii
(NEXSTAR) — A massive satellite officially reentered Earth’s atmosphere Wednesday, according to the European Space Agency.
The ESA’s European Remote Sensing 2 (ERS-2) satellite launched in April 1995 and “collected a wealth of valuable data on Earth’s land surfaces, oceans, and polar caps,” the agency explains. It also helped “to monitor natural disasters such as severe flooding or earthquakes in remote parts of the world.”
While it was once the most sophisticated Earth-observer launched by Europe, ERS-2’s operations ended in 2011. That year, the satellite underwent more than five dozen deorbiting maneuvers, burning off fuel and bringing it to an altitude that would keep it from colliding with other bits of space debris.
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Since then, the ESA says all of the satellite’s instruments and electronic systems have been deactivated, and the batteries discharged “to reduce the risk of ERS-2 fragmenting into smaller pieces while passing through important regions during its orbital decay.”
On Wednesday, the ESA says ERS-2 reached the altitude point in our atmosphere, around 50 miles, “at which the atmospheric drag was so strong that [it] began to break into pieces.”
While the ESA was able to provide a rough window of when it would complete reentry, it wasn’t clear exactly when and where it would take place. The agency also couldn’t control the 5,050-pound satellite. (The ESA says, however, that an object of similar mass reenters our atmosphere “every week or two.”)
After tracking the satellite throughout the day on Wednesday, the ESA confirmed ERS-2 had completed reentry around 2 p.m. ET.
Throughout the process, the satellite was on track to complete reentry at points in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean, then over the Norwegian Sea. The ESA says it “completed its atmospheric reentry” at a point over the Pacific Ocean, about 1,200 miles north of Hawaii and almost 1,600 miles west of San Francisco.
The satellite was expected to burn up in our atmosphere, though the ESA said “some fragments” could still reach Earth’s surface. Following reentry, the ESA said “no damage to property has been reported.”
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This was also considered a “natural” reentry because ERS-2 had burned off any remaining fuel.
It’s also worth noting that Earth is surrounded by countless bits of space debris. An inhabitant of Earth has a one-in-a-billion chance of being injured by any of it reentering our atmosphere — and a better chance of winning the Powerball jackpot.
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