Parts of European satellite to crash to Earth … somewhere
A European satellite that mapped earth's gravitational field will be pulled down by gravity to its fiery destruction sometime in the next few days.
A European satellite that mapped earth's gravitational field will be pulled down by gravity to its fiery destruction sometime in the next few days.
Where and when it will crash no one knows. It could be almost anywhere on the globe. About 25 to 45 fragments of the four tonne spacecraft are expected to survive all the way to the surface, with the largest weighing as much as 100kg.
It's rather hard to predict where the spacecraft will re-enter and impact ... our best engineering prediction is now for a re-entry on Sunday, with a possibility for it slipping into Monday
It is the latest in a parade of spacecraft falling from the sky in what are worryingly called "uncontrolled entries."
About 100 tonnes of debris will fall from the sky this year. There are, however, no known instances in which anyone has been injured by space debris.
"It's rather hard to predict where the spacecraft will re-enter and impact," said Rune Floberghagen, mission manager for the European Space Agency's Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer, or GOCE.
"Concretely our best engineering prediction is now for a re-entry on Sunday, with a possibility for it slipping into Monday."