Undated artists impression of the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer satellite which was placed in orbit in 2009 on a mission to monitor variations in gravity and sea levels
CAPE CANAVERAL: A large science satellite that mapped Earth’s gravity, now doomed by the force, is heading back into the atmosphere, officials said.
Europe’s Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, or GOCE, was just 160km above Earth and dropping at a rate of 13km per day, operations manager Christoph Steiger wrote in a status report posted on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) website. “Re-entry into the atmosphere (is) probably less than two days away,” Steiger said.
The 1,100kg satellite was launched in 2009 to map variations in Earth’s gravity. GOCE ran out of fuel on October 21 and has been steadily losing altitude since, tugged by Earth’s gravity.
Most of the spacecraft will burn up as it blasts through the atmosphere, but up to 50 fragments — or roughly 25 percent of the satellite — is expected to survive re-entry and end up somewhere on the planet’s surface. With two-thirds of Earth covered by water and vast areas of sparsely populated land, the risk to human life and property is considered extremely low, the ESA said. Due to constant changes in Earth’s upper atmosphere, scientists cannot yet predict where and when GOCE will re-enter.
Reuters
