It's confirmed: Germany's Roentgen satellite (ROSAT) fell to Earth sometime this morning. For the world, the confirmed fall of the satellite ended a week's worth of excitement, or one could say nervousness, about where the 1.6 tons worth of remains from the 2.7 ton satellite would land. So far, due to lack of reports about pieces of the satellite hitting anything, the implication is that it fell harmlessly into the water, quitepossibly over the Indian Ocean.
This comes on the heels of another uncontrolled satellite fall, that of NASA's Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS).
For the ROSAT satellite, this is the end of a 21 year life, 9 of which were operational. As for the satellite itself, it was an X-ray telescope launched into orbit back in 1990 as a joint collaborative effort between the United States, Germany, and England. In 1999, the mission was finished but, as with the vast majority of satellites, it continued floating around in orbit, among the largest pieces of space junk.
Unfortunately, when the mission ended, the fuel on ROSAT was completely expended, which meant that mission control had no way to even communicate with the satellite, much less de-orbit it into a re-entry over water. However, thanks to a dedicated network of amateur satellite watchers, people all over the world were still able to track ROSAT's progress through the night sky.
In the final weeks of the satellite's flight, the world was abuzz over the knowledge that the van-sized satellite would soon fall from orbit. Initially, like with UARS, a time span of a few weeks was the first announcement, then, as the fall date drew nearer, the predictions were refined to weeks, and then days. However, it was not until the final hours proceeding the fall that anyone was able to start making predictions to (or ruling out) possible fall zones.
Now, the world awaits confirmation of the fall location and, just maybe, photos.
For more info:
ROSAT FAQ
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