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A European satellite is facing a fiery doom next month, when it is expected to begin falling from space to end a successful mission to map Earth's gravity. The spacecraft runs out of fuel in October, but exactly when and where it will fall to Earth isn't yet known.
The fiery re-entry of the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite, which the European Space Agency has billed as the "the Ferrari of space," will occur about two or three weeks after the satellite runs out of fuel in mid-October, ESA officials said.
There is in most cases. Fewer and fewer satellites will have uncontrolled reentries.
Seems like there should be a contingency plan.
reply to post by EnigmaAgent
Without this engine, Goce would rapidly fall to Earth. But the mission team reported here in Munich that Goce probably has sufficient propellant onboard to drive its engine until deep into 2014. [email protected]
Trillium
Here more info on it re-entry in 3 week
www.satflare.com...
Predicted Reentry Time: 11 NOV 2013 02:30 UTC ± 15 hours
Prediction Epoch: 08 NOV 2013 15:33:10.017 UTC
Predicted Reentry Time time at which a reentering object might first become visible due to aerodynamic heating, corresponding to an altitude of ~120 km (~65 nmi), in units of UTC; for a high-eccentricity orbit, the perigee may actually be much less than 120 km, which may lead to on-orbit fragmentation of the object Prediction Epoch the most recent elements epoch used to perform the reentry prediction, in units of UTC
Legend Yellow Icon – location of object at predicted reentry time Orange Line – area of visibility at the predicted reentry time for a ground observer Blue Line – ground track uncertainty prior to predicted reentry time (ticks at 5-minute intervals) Yellow Line – ground track uncertainty after predicted reentry time (ticks at 5-minute intervals) White Line – day/night divider at predicted reentry time (Sun location shown by White Icon) Pink Icon – vicinity of eyewitness sighting Note: Possible reentry locations lie anywhere along the blue and yellow ground track.
donlashway
reply to post by EnigmaAgent
Update From Aerospace Corp. Thanks Phage
aerospace corp link to GOCE satellite
Predicted Reentry Time: 11 NOV 2013 02:30 UTC ± 15 hours
Prediction Epoch: 08 NOV 2013 15:33:10.017 UTC
You do know that these program will stil show them going around after they have gone down
and those projection could be out by as much as 5 to 15 minute off in a fast fall
Predicted Reentry Time time at which a reentering object might first become visible due to aerodynamic heating, corresponding to an altitude of ~120 km (~65 nmi), in units of UTC; for a high-eccentricity orbit, the perigee may actually be much less than 120 km, which may lead to on-orbit fragmentation of the object Prediction Epoch the most recent elements epoch used to perform the reentry prediction, in units of UTC
Legend Yellow Icon – location of object at predicted reentry time Orange Line – area of visibility at the predicted reentry time for a ground observer Blue Line – ground track uncertainty prior to predicted reentry time (ticks at 5-minute intervals) Yellow Line – ground track uncertainty after predicted reentry time (ticks at 5-minute intervals) White Line – day/night divider at predicted reentry time (Sun location shown by White Icon) Pink Icon – vicinity of eyewitness sighting Note: Possible reentry locations lie anywhere along the blue and yellow ground track.
So coming down soon.
Might be a sight to see?
Imagine what you could get for a piece of that space junk?edit on 8-11-2013 by donlashway because: (no reason given)