A 5 1/2-ton dead research satellite will crash into Earth today, the largest such object to make an uncontrolled landing since 1979, NASA said.
NASA said yesterday that the satellite, which has a 1-in-3,200 chance of injuring or killing a person on landing, won’t hit North America. It said it was too early to “predict the time and location of re-entry with any more certainty.”
NASA expects 26 “potentially hazardous” objects from the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite to survive, with a total weight of 1,172 pounds, spread over an area 500 miles long.
“The great majority burns up and never poses any harm,” said Steve Cole, a NASA spokesman. The odds of it hitting a person are “one in several trillion.”
The last time larger NASA satellites made uncontrolled crashes was 1979, when Skylab and Pegasus 2, came down, said Cole.