NASA spacecraft makes an uncontrolled plunge back to Earth A large space probe plummeted into Earth’s atmosphere early Wednesday, years earlier than expected. The spacecraft, known as Van Allen Probe A, was launched by NASA in 2012 to study the Van Allen radiation belts—two cosmic bands of high-energy particles trapped in Earth’s magnetic field. After operating for over seven years, the probe’s mission ended in 2019 when it ran out of fuel. Now, it has reentered Earth’s atmosphere, with NASA estimating that a few components could have survived the fiery descent. The reentry occurred near the equatorial Pacific, south of Mexico and west of Ecuador, at 6:37 a.m. ET. While most of the spacecraft was expected to disintegrate during reentry, NASA noted that the risk of debris harming a person was estimated at about 1 in 4,200. This is lower than the odds of past space debris incidents, such as the 2018 reentry of China’s space station, which had a chance of less than 1 in a trillion of causing harm. Dr. Darren McKnight, a senior technical fellow at space-tracking company LeoLabs, described the current risk as “not a horrible day for mankind,” emphasizing that such probabilities have improved over time. However, the event highlights the ongoing challenges of managing space debris. NASA’s policies require that spacecraft launched by the U.S. reenter or be safely disposed of within 25 years of their mission’s end. For the Van Allen Probes, the plan was to allow them to burn up in the atmosphere as they fell back to Earth. Mission planners had initially predicted the spacecraft would reenter in 2034, but the actual timeline was accelerated due to the solar cycle’s intensity.#nasa #international_space_station #space_x #van_allen_probe_a #leo_labs
