Where It Goes, Nobody Knows: Uncontrolled Satellite to Hit Earth in Weeks
Hopefully, somebody figures it out soon. Government officials recently reported that a large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and propulsion and could hit the Earth in a few weeks, sometime late February or March. Not to sound alarmist, but this definitely sounds like a cause for concern.
Potentially containing hazardous materials, the satellite which can no longer be controlled has no determined crash site on the planet. Gordon Johndroe, a spokesperson from the National Security Council says, “Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation. Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at the potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause.”
Johndroe would not comment on the possibility of using a missile to shoot down the satellite, as he found it inappropriate at this point to discuss details.
Similar events have occurred in the past. In 1979, NASA’s Skylab, a 78-ton abandoned space station also fell from orbit. Debris from the space station fell into the Indian Ocean and across a remote section of Western Australia. Like the case of this latest report, it was also an uncontrolled re-entry; the largest so far in history.
Another noteworthy event is the safe de-orbit done by NASA on the 17-ton Compton Gamma Ray Observatory in 2000. The engineers used rockets aboard the satellite to bring it down to a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. Heading over to another body of water, the Persian Gulf, officials believe that debris from a 7,000 pound science satellite rained down in this location sometime in 2002. The debris fell a few thousand miles away from where it was originally predicted to hit.
With inaccurate predictions for uncontrolled crashes, it seems that over the next few weeks, we should always be looking above our heads for blazing pieces of space station stuff. Somebody should really figure out soon where the defunct U.S. spy satellite would crash. Everyone would probably want to be at least a thousand miles away from where scientists would say it would fall… or then again maybe not?
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