Defunct climate satellite will make a sizzling death plunge

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Neetu Banga

At least 26 large pieces of the dead satellite will hit the ground on Earth - after surviving the sizzling temperatures of atmospheric re-entry. NASA scientists are trying to veer its course to unpopulated areas like the Arctic.

THE SCHOOL-bus size defunct Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), which cost 750 million dollar and was launched in 1991by the space shuttle Discovery to study the ozone layer including the Earth’s upper atmosphere is likely to crash down to Earth any time on September 23, 2011. It was designed for a three-year mission but it lasted for 14 years, and worked faultlessly till newer satellites made it obsolete.

The UARS weighs about six and a half tons, is 35 feet long and 15 feet wide, and is flying in an orbit that reached a high point about 240 kilometres above earth – and most of it will burn up on re-entry. This is the largest satellite to come back to earth unrestrained since Skylab in 1979.

According to NASA scientists’ calculations, UARS, which was NASA’s first multi-instrumented satellite and decommissioned in December 2005, was expected to de-orbit September 23, plus or minus a day but close to making its fall. Nobody knows just yet where it will land on ground. Officials indicated that UARS satellite debris could be anywhere between the latitudes of northern Canada and southern South America. At least 26 large pieces of dead satellite will hit the ground on Earth surviving the sizzling temperatures of atmospheric re-entry.

The velocity of these pieces is projected to be tens to hundreds of miles an hour, and there is one-in-3200 chance its debris could hit any person or structure. If the satellite does fall or passes while flying over an inhabited region of earth, skywatchers could see a “dazzling light” in clear weather.

There is no cause for worry as about 150 tons of large and small pieces of solid extraterrestrial bodies land on our planet every day. Some are visible and some are not; most of the debris is so small it’s never found.

Advance warning from NASA officials about it falling is because of the varying density of upper atmosphere and they would not able to tell where it is going to ground. The NASA team on debris control for obsolete satellite will only able to tell two hours before it falls back to Earth. However, they will attempt to chart its path towards the Arctic and north of Antarctica. It will all depend on the mystery of sun, which is constantly changing the output of energy.