A defunct NASA satellite that was expected to plummet to Earth re-entered the atmosphere and burned up in the Sahara desert, NASA said Thursday.
The decommissioned 660-pound Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager spacecraft (or RHESSI) was expected to dissipate mostly into the atmosphere as it plummeted toward Earth, but some debris landed on the ground. expected to collide.
So far, NASA officials said they have so far received no reports of damage or injuries from the re-entry over Sudan early Thursday morning.
“The risk of harm to anyone on the planet is low, about 1 in 2,467.” said in a statement before the craft plummets to the ground.
RHESSI was first launched into low orbit in 2002 and spent 16 years studying the Sun, observing solar flares and coronal mass ejections to help scientists investigate the physics of the Sun’s energy bursts.
It also helped discoveries related to the shape of the sun and the ‘terrestrial gamma-ray flash’, a burst that occurs in thunderstorms on Earth.
Using an imaging spectrometer, RHESSI recorded 100,000 X-ray events and gamma-ray images of the Sun, NASA said.
Retired in 2018 due to communication failure.
RHESSI is a relatively lightweight satellite at 660 pounds compared to other satellites launched into orbit and back from orbit.
In January, NASA announced that the 38-year-old satellite weighing 5,600 pounds will return to Earth following multiple instances of Chinese rocket debris re-entering the atmosphere in 2022.
with post wire