A European satellite is crashing back to Earth tomorrow; while most of it should burn-up in a fiery re-entry through our atmosphere, there could be some remnants. And those remnants could land in your backyard. Known as the ERS-2 satellite, the 5,057 pound spacecraft is expected to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere around 11:31 am ET tomorrow, give or take 5 hours. Any matter that survives re-entry should reach the Earth’s surface soon after.
The ERS-2 Earth observing satellite was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in April 1995. Together with its nearly identical ERS-1 satellite, it captured important data on land, oceans, and ice and even was used to monitor natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods around the globe. At the end of its service life, ESA made the decision to end the satellite operations and de-orbit the satellite.
In the time since the decision was made to re-orbit the aging satellite, dozens or de-orbiting maneuvers were performed by ESA mission operators. According to ESA, de-orbiting satellites at the end of their life ensures that the satellites or their remnants burn-up in the Earth’s atmosphere rather than pose hazards to other orbiting spacecraft or become additional space debris to an increasingly congested area above Earth in space.
“ERS-2 used up the last of its fuel in 2011 in order to minimize the risk of a catastrophic explosion that could have generated a large amount of space debris,” ESA shared in an update on the status of the falling satellite. “Its batteries were depleted and its communication antenna and onboard electronics were switched off. There is no longer any way to actively control the motion of the satellite from the ground during its descent.”
With the power out and no way to communicate with the tumbling satellite, it is now falling towards Earth. Because 71% of the Earth’s surface is water, odds are any remnants from the satellite would crash away from people in water. And because most of that water is in the form of oceans, the odds of people even seeing remnants impact Earth is remote. While it is extremely remote, it isn’t zero.
According to ESA, the annual risk of an individual person being injured by space debris is under 1 in 100 billion. This means you are 65,000 times more likely to be struck by lightning that by space debris.
Aerospace Corporation is one of many entities tracking the satellite. In their latest re-entry forecast, they sketch yellow and blue lines on a map to show the satellite’s final orbits around the planet. The satellite could re-enter at any point along one of those lines, with its debris reaching Earth not far from there. Currently, those lines cross several places over the United States: Alaska, Hawaii (near Maui or Hawaii Islands), Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Michigan. Because the satellite shouldn’t detour from these final orbital paths, people not in these states have no chance of seeing or being impacted by the satellite.
While the odds of being struck by this satellite and its debris field is extremely remote, a person has been struck by space debris before –and lived to talk about it. In January 1977, Lottie Williams and two friends were walking through a park in Tulsa, Oklahoma around 3:30 am when they saw a huge fireball streaking from the skies.
In an interview with FoxNews.com, Williams said, ” We were stunned, in awe. It was beautiful.” Less than thirty minutes later, that awe turned to fear. “We were still walking through the park when I felt a tapping on my shoulder,” Williams explained. With no one near her at the time, she started to run, thinking a stranger had appeared out of the shadows. Then she heard something hit the ground behind her. “The weight was comparable to an empty soda can,” Williams told FoxNews.com. “It looked like a piece of fabric except when you tap it, it sounded metallic.”
Williams was sure she’d found a piece of a shooting star. Assuming it was a piece of a shooting star, Williams brought the unusual object to her local library. There, she was referred to a local astronomy club and to the National Weather Service. The National Weather Service had informed her that a Delta II rocket had re-entered the atmosphere the night before. Additional testing of the debris proved it was indeed from the Delta II rocket.
The European Space Agency is providing frequent live updates on the status of the ERS-2 re-entry at this website: https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2024/02/05/ers-2-reentry-live-updates/
Aerospace Corporation has its latest tracking map and details here:
https://aerospace.org/reentries/23560
