By Andrew Bridges Pasadena Bureau Chief Space.Com
The first
Iridium telecommunications satellite to reenter the atmosphere
broke up over the Arctic Ocean early Wednesday.
The non-operational
satellite reentered at 4:44 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (09:44
GMT), said Master Sgt. Larry Lincoln, of the United States Space
Command, which tracks about 8,000 artificial objects orbiting
the Earth, including spacecraft, satellites, rocket bodies and
debris.
"The
satellite was not designed to survive reentry intact and was expected
to mostly burn up in the atmosphere," Lincoln said.
The satellite
was launched September 8, 1998, but failed and was reported tumbling
out of control just two months later.
A second Iridium
satellite is expected to reenter the atmosphere no later than
December 17.
As for the
Chicken Littles of the world, they need not worry.
A study of
the Iridium satellite reentries, show they are within a NASA and
U.S. government standard of acceptable risk, said Nicholas Johnson,
chief scientist and program manager for NASA’s orbital debris
office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. That is,
there is a one-in-10,000 chance of anybody being hurt on the ground
by a falling Iridium spacecraft, he told SPACE.com.
Although the
Iridium constellation will lose a few more satellites that are
tumbling in orbit, the roughly 70 remaining operational birds
have found their savior.
Earlier this
month, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of
New York approved Iridium Satellite LLC’s bargain-basement
$25 million bid to purchase the operating assets of Iridium LLC
and its subsidiaries.
Motorola,
builder and initial operator of the $7 billion constellation of
Iridium satellites will provide subscriber equipment for users
of the worldwide satellite network. The Boeing Co. will operate
and maintain the satellites.
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