Retired 660-pound NASA satellite expected to crash into Earth on Wednesday
Eden Villalovas
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A dead, 660-pound NASA satellite, Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, is expected to hit Earth on Wednesday.
The satellite is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere at 9:30 p.m. ET. NASA expects most of the satellite to burn up during reentry, saying that the risk of harm coming to anyone on Earth is low, approximately “1 in 2,467.”
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Launched in 2002, RHESSI operated for 16 years after NASA ended its mission due to communication failures with the spacecraft.
The satellite launched with an Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus XL rocket, a three-stage solid propellant rocket, and was part of NASA’s Small Explorers mission, operated by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Before decommissioning in 2018, RHESSI recorded 100,000 X-ray events using an imaging spectrometer, and gamma-ray images, making history by capturing the first gamma-ray and high-energy X-ray images of solar flares.
For over a decade, the spacecraft gathered information to help scientists understand the physics of solar flares.
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“Data from RHESSI provided vital clues about solar flares and their associated coronal mass ejections,” reads the NASA statement. “These events release the energy equivalent of billions of megatons of TNT into the solar atmosphere within minutes and can have effects on Earth, including the disruption of electrical systems. Understanding them has proven challenging.”
The reentry window is plus or minus 16 hours, according to NASA, and experts do not have an exact prediction of where the debris will land. NASA and the Defense Department observe reentry paths and provide any updated assessments.