NASA said Monday that it has a better idea of when a 6-ton decommissioned satellite it has been tracking will crash to earth.
“Re-entry is expected during the last week of September,” NASA said in an update posted on its website for the 20-year-old Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), which has been orbiting the Earth in a defunct state since 2005.
Previously, NASA had gauged the expected date to “late September or early October.”
NASA also noted that the current orbit of the UARS had changed to 145 miles by 165 miles from its Sept. 8 update of 152 miles by 171 miles, showing that the satellite is tightening its loop around the Earth and getting ever closer to its fiery re-entry.
Incredibly, NASA won’t actually have any idea of where the old atmospheric research satellite will crash land within 6,000 miles, even down to two hours before it hits the ground, due to the randomness of its uncontrolled fall and breakup.
But the agency seemed confident in a press conference last Friday that the public was safe, noting that current calculations place the odds of inhabited areas getting struck by debris at 1 in 3,200. NASA predicts it will fall in an uninhabited wilderness region, such as Siberia, or an ocean.
“Throughout the entire 54 years of the space age there has been no report of anyone anywhere in the world being hit by or impacted by any re-entering debris,” said NIck Johnson, NASA chief scientist for orbital debris, at the time.
Still, if you’d like to see where the debris could fall, check out this video simulation from Analytical Graphics, Inc. hosted on Space.com.
NASA will continue to make weekly updates until four days before anticipated re-entry, when it will begin making much more frequent micro-updates of the satellite’s fall.
Stay updated on the path of UARS here. We’ll continue to update as well.
