1980s NASA Satellite Crashes Back to Earth Over Bering Sea

A 2.7 - gross ton defunct orbiter came down over the Bering Sea on January 8 near the Aleutian Islands , and while most of it combust up in the atmosphere , NASA says it ’s likely that some pieces touch the control surface .

NASAsaysits Earth Radiation Budget Satellite ( ERBS ) made its reentry at 11:04 p.m. ET on Sunday , January 8 , with Space Force ’s Space Track confirming a reentry near the Aleutian Islands , asreportedin SpaceNews . The 5,400 - pound research satellite had spent the last 38 years in low Earth orbit , having been drive home to blank space on October 5 , 1984 by the Space Shuttle Challenger . The ERBS mission was only suppose to last for two year , but it eked out a 21 - year life history , having been retired in 2005 .

While it was in surgical process , ERBS gathered data on Earth ’s vim budget , that is , the balance between the amount of solar energy that our planet receive and the amount it radiates back to blank space . Three instrument aboard the ballistic capsule were used to measure stratospheric concentrations of body of water vapor , ozone , nitrogen dioxide , and various aerosols . ERBS boost our understanding of climate and ozone stratum health , and it chip in flat to the borrowing of the 1987 Montreal Protocol Agreement confine the function of damaging chlorofluorocarbons ( CFS ) , according to NASA .

Artist’s depiction of ERBS.

Artist’s depiction of ERBS.Illustration: NASA

NASA “ expect most of the satellite to burn up as it jaunt through the atm , but for some components to survive the reentry , ” as the space agency explained in its statement . An earlier version of its post assessed the odds of potentially harmful debris reach the earth at 1 in 9,400 . There are no reports of injury or damage as a solvent of the strike dust .

This a la mode orbiter reentry represents the onetime path of doing matter , both in terms of the time it read the satellite to deorbit after retirement and the risk it set to people on the flat coat . In September 2022 , the U.S. Federal Communications Commissionadopted a new five - year rulefor the deorbiting of defunct satellite , a move designed to minify the amount of space rubble and minimize chances of in - space collision . In gain , a 2019updateto U.S. government orbital debris mitigation stock practice submit that the “ risk of human casualty from surviving element ” should be less than 1 in 10,000 .

ERBS violates both of these rule , but obviously these policy were n’t in place when ERBS set in motion to blank space in 1984 ; these kind of things are to be ask for legacy spacecraft , though on a decreasing basis . Or at least , for satellite and launching providers who adhere to these guidelines , whether they be domestic or outside . Indeed , China designed its Long March 5B rocket such that it can not do a controlled reentry — a decision that has now threaten human life and property on four unlike occasions , the most late in November 2022 .

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