Germany's ROSAT: crashing into an Earth near you!

When it comes to things crashing back into earth, you’d better get used to it.  With as much space junk floating around and as many satellites as there are now, the idea of a massive satellite burning up in earth’s atmosphere is one you’ll need to get used to.  After all, just a short while ago, a massive NASA satellite returned to earth, and now a German Roentgen Satellite will also take the plunge.  A 2.4 ton German ROSAT satellite is expected to crash back to earth sometime this weekend.

“We don’t expect big parts to re-enter, except the mirror and the glass and ceramic parts,” Jan Woerner, head of the executive board of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Germany’s space agency, told SPACE.com. “Usually during re-entry, you have rather clear burning of all the elements, but glass and ceramics may survive and may come down in bigger pieces.”  Add Woerner, “With satellites like ROSAT, you depend on external circumstances.  For instance, solar wind and changes in the atmosphere may change the time of re-entry.  We just have to wait and observe.”

ROSAT was launched in 1990 as a joint mission between the US, British, and German space agencies.  After being damaged in 1998, the satellite was decommissioned in 1999 and now it’s coming home.  The ROSAT was an x-ray space observatory until its star tracker was damaged, leaving the ROSAT pointed at the sun.

Tags: Germany, ROSAT, Jan Woerner, DLR, space, satellites, satellite to crash into earth, German satellite to return to earth, X-ray space observatory, 2.4-ton satellite to return to earth,  German Roentgen Satellite, space junk, space observation, NASA,  Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt

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