Agency
08/03/2024
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UPDATE (March 8, 5:00 p.m. CET): The ISS batteries’ re-entry is now expected between approximately 5:30 p.m. CET and 9:50 p.m. CET on March 8.
UPDATE (March 8, 11:00 CET): The re-entry of the ISS batteries is now expected between approximately 15:35 CET and 22:25 CET on March 8.
Original text (March 7, 8:00 p.m. CET):
The Space Residue and Space Safety Offices of the European Space Agency (ESA) are currently closely monitoring the re-entry of a range of discarded ISS batteries.
The total of nine batteries were already decoupled from the ISS on January 11, 2021 and thus subjected to an uncontrolled re-entry, which is now predicted for March 8, 2024 +/- 0.4 days.
The assumed total mass is 2.6 tons, most of which is expected to burn up during reentry. Even if some parts can reach the ground, the risk of an accident and the likelihood of a person being hit is very low.
Natural reentry will occur between -51.6 degrees South and 51.6 degrees North. Predictions regarding the time and location of re-entry in such cases are naturally associated with large uncertainties, mainly due to the difficult to predict atmospheric resistance. The closer you get to the estimated re-entry time, the easier it is to geographically delimit the affected area.
The ESA tracks the object and, upon request, provides its member states with corresponding forecasts, which then continuously combine them with their own analyses.
About every week, a large space object reenters uncontrollably, with most of the associated fragments burning up before reaching the ground. Most spacecraft, launch vehicles and their infrastructure are designed to limit the risk of re-entry.
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