Falling Satellite ROSAT Hurtling Toward Earth

BERLIN — A retired satellite is hurtling toward the atmosphere and pieces of it could crash into the Earth as early as Friday, the German Aerospace Center says.

Scientists are no longer able to communicate with the dead German satellite ROSAT, which orbits the earth every 90 minutes, and experts are not sure exactly where pieces of it could land.

Parts of the satellite, which is the size of a minivan, will burn up during re-entry but up to 30 fragments weighing a total of 1.87 tons (1.7 metric tons) could crash into the Earth sometime between Friday and Monday, center spokesman Andreas Schuetz told The Associated Press.

"All countries around the globe between 53-degrees north and 53-degrees south could possibly be affected," Schuetz said Wednesday – a vast swath of territory that includes much of the earth outside the poles.

The 2.69-ton (2.4 metric ton) scientific satellite was launched in 1990 and retired in 1999 after being used for research on black holes and neutron stars and performing the first all-sky survey of X-ray sources with an imaging telescope.

The largest single fragment of ROSAT that could hit into the earth is the telescope's heat-resistant mirror.

The satellite will re-enter the atmosphere at a speed of 17,400 mph (28,000 kph).

As it nears the Earth in coming days, scientists will be able to more accurately estimate exactly when it will land to a window of about 10 hours.

A dead NASA satellite fell into the southern Pacific Ocean last month, causing no damage, despite fears it would hit a populated area and cause damage or kill people.

Experts believe about two dozen metal pieces from the bus-sized satellite fell over a 500-mile (800 kilometer) span of uninhabited portion of the world.

The NASA climate research satellite entered Earth's atmosphere generally above American Samoa. But falling debris as it broke apart did not start hitting the water for another 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the northeast, southwest of Christmas Island.

Earlier, scientists had said it was possible some pieces could have reached northwestern Canada.

The German space agency puts the odds of somebody somewhere on Earth being hurt by its satellite at 1-in-2,000 – a slightly higher level of risk than was calculated for the NASA satellite. But any one individual's odds of being struck are 1-in-14 trillion, given there are 7 billion people on the planet.

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Online:

The German space agency on ROSAT: http://bit.ly/papMAA

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Comments

[Nelson Montana]

06:23 AM on 10/20/2011

All countries around the globe 53 degrees north and 53 degrees south? Isn't that everywhere?

[ThinkCreeps]

07:43 AM on 10/20/2011

Not Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland or the Baltic States, but yes - everywhere else.

[MagicalPossibilities]

12:04 AM on 10/20/2011

So is this the second one in a month? Have they all suddenly reached their expiration date?

[palindrom]

07:42 AM on 10/20/2011

Solar activity is a bit on the high side, which puffs up the outer atmosphere, which increases the drag on satellites -- so they may be re-entering a bit more often than they were a few years ago. But mostly, this is just chance, and the fact that for some reason this is now thought to be newsworthy.

[palindrom]

10:21 PM on 10/19/2011

Ah, ROSAT. It was a fantastic space observatory in its day, the first to do a sensitive survey of the X-ray sky. It discovered thousands and thousands of interesting objects, and it worked great.

There are many commenters who wonder why it can't be de-orbited or blown up or something. All of the proposed solutions are either outrageously expensive, impractical, or have other, more severe consequences.

If one were to spend the many millions of dollars required to de-orbit this thing safely, it would be about the least cost-effective manner imaginable for relieving human suffering. The same money spent, for example, on public health projects in a third world country would save thousands of lives, while de-orbiting a satellite like this has a tiny, tiny chance of preventing even a single injury. Just let it fall, and the overwhelming likelihood is that it won't hit anyone.

[IMOPINIONH8D]

08:25 PM on 10/19/2011

Look out folks here comes another one.

[StrawHat]

07:50 PM on 10/19/2011

So what happens when one of these puppies falls across the Eastern seaboard? Or Beijing? Or greater London?

Does anyone who shoots these into space know or care? Will they be held responsible?

[SimonBao]

02:20 AM on 10/20/2011

Pretty much nothing happens.

The chances of them landing in densely populated metropolitan areas are really exceedingly small.

And even if one of them does, the chances of it doing any harm to a person are even smaller.

Almost every satellite that has ever been launched has already fallen back to Earth. How many people have had their lives or property impacted by that?

[Craig Bovia]

06:45 PM on 10/19/2011

I am surprised I haven't received an offer to sell me some "Satellite falling on my head" insurance.
What has happened to American Ingenuity???

[bigshotprof]

06:35 PM on 10/19/2011

Retired, out of control, no idea where its going and impossible to communicate with. sounds like an uncle of mine.

[Laxsmi de Potrero]

04:31 AM on 10/20/2011

does he vote republican?

[bigshotprof]

09:20 AM on 10/20/2011

He goes into the booth, there are a lot of fumbling and huffing noises. Nobody really knows what happens.

[AbstractImp]

06:28 PM on 10/19/2011

One in two thousand chances. . .
And how many satellites are there?

[vetxcl]

09:05 PM on 10/19/2011

If you check with NASA and see how many thousands of objects are orbiting our planet, it should be understandable that this occurs on a weekly basis at the least. The real concern should be the loss of the expenditure on the satellite. Used to be that the US had a reusable vehicle to reel in these satellites, repair them, and they could have been focused on repurposing them. Maybe we will again within ten years or so.

[Dogvane]

06:25 PM on 10/19/2011

Can't keep it afloat. The manual's written in German and we fired the only guy who can make heads or tails of it.

[Red Russet]

06:19 PM on 10/19/2011

What happened to the last one? Where did the pieces fall?

[Craig Bovia]

06:48 PM on 10/19/2011

They think it went into the Ocean somewhere between India and Australia. Don't worry. They have everything under control. Which is code for "We don't have a Clue".

[moguns]

05:56 PM on 10/19/2011

Damn I think 12/21/2012 is already here!!!

[Craig Bovia]

06:49 PM on 10/19/2011

Is it? Where are You?

[vetxcl]

09:07 PM on 10/19/2011

In his fallout shelter.

[vetxcl]

05:52 PM on 10/19/2011

People responding to this article claim there isn't even a German Space Agency. Well, lookie here: http://www.dlr.de/dlr/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10002

[AbstractImp]

06:29 PM on 10/19/2011

No,
it moved to America after WW2!

[vetxcl]

09:05 PM on 10/19/2011

No. And you can deny it all you want to. But, that's simply not born out by facts that you've ignored. Click the link and read.

[shewolf2002]

05:50 PM on 10/19/2011

Whoa, now that's climate change! We have the dry season, the monsoon/rainy season, and now we have the satellites-falling-from-space season!

[time2talk]

06:21 PM on 10/19/2011

God seems to be cleaning house.

[abuckley23]

05:45 PM on 10/19/2011

Maybe it'll hit Lindsey Lohan and save her having to go back to jail/her condo.

[time2talk]

06:22 PM on 10/19/2011

She just refuses to get it together. She keeps flaunting authority. She's used up her 9 lives on the outside.

[cam1002]

06:41 PM on 10/19/2011

Or any of the Kardashians and we'll never have to hear about them again.

[StrawHat]

07:52 PM on 10/19/2011

Ahhhh...heaven....

[vetxcl]

05:43 PM on 10/19/2011

So, I'm hoping that sometime soon, AOLpo will get off the "sky's falling" tone. This sort of thing happens almost weekly. Not all shooting stars are naturally occuring.