PARIS, SEPT 8 – After 24 years of intensive study of the Earth’s magnetic field, most of the satellites will burn up in the Pacific Ocean today during a ‘targeted’ re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, a first for the European Space Agency (ESA) where it is working to reduce space debris.
Since its launch in 2000, the Salsa satellite has helped shed light on the magnetosphere, the powerful magnetic shield that protects Earth from the solar wind and without which it would be uninhabitable.
According to the ESA, Salsa is targeted to fall back to earth at a specific time and place but will not be controlled while entering the atmosphere.
The team on the ground carried out a series of maneuvers with the 550-kilogram satellite to keep it burning in a remote, uninhabited area of the South Pacific, off the coast of Chile.
The satellite’s re-entry to earth is likely to happen because Salsa’s orbit is oval. During its orbit around the earth, which took two and a half days, it had missed 130,000 kilometers (km) and had come within a few hundred km.
Head of ESA’s Internal Solar System Mission Operations Unit, Bruno Sousa said it was important for Salsa to come within about 110km during its last two orbits. – AFP
