Washington, September 25: NASA’s defunct Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) has plunged to Earth but US space agency officials do not know where it landed.
UARS hit the Earth’s surface early on Saturday, more than eight hours later than expected.
NASA scientists thought that it fell largely over water and that no one was probably hurt by the falling debris.
The agency did not give a more specific location in a midday update on its website, which also said officials were not aware of any reports of injuries or property damage. Most of the spacecraft was believed to have burned up.
The bus-sized satellite first penetrated Earth’s atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, according to NASA and the US Air Force’s Joint Space Operations Center. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it all fell into the sea.
NASA’s earlier calculations had predicted that the 20-year-old former climate research satellite would fall over a 500-mile (800-kilometer) swath and could hit land.
Because the descent began over the ocean and given the lack of any reports of people being hit, that “gives us a good feeling that no one was hurt,” but officials didn’t know for certain, NASA spokesman Steve Cole told the Associated Press.
“Pieces are falling off of this flaming fireball, and some of it has enough momentum to go hundreds of miles,” he said.
Cole said that was possible because the last track for the satellite included Canada, starting north of Seattle and then in a large arc north then south. From there, the track continued through the Atlantic and south toward Africa, but it was unlikely the satellite got that far if it started falling over the Pacific.
Cole said NASA was hoping for more details from the Air Force, which was responsible for tracking debris.
But officials may never quite know precisely where it landed.
“Most space debris is in the ocean. It’ll be hard to confirm,” Cole said.
UARS is the largest US space agency satellite to hit the atmosphere uncontrolled in about 30 years.
——Agencies