Sometime today, a 6 1/2-ton satellite with links to Colorado scientists and engineers will come crashing to Earth.
Twenty-six metallic chunks of the bus-size Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite are expected to survive the fiery re-entry with a 500-mile-long debris path.
NASA officials don’t know exactly where the pieces will slam into the planet, but they say it won’t be in the United States. The satellite won’t be passing over North America during the plunge, which is expected this afternoon EDT.
NASA released a statement Thursday that said it was too early to “predict the time and location of re-entry with any more certainty.” The space agency also advised that anyone finding a piece should not touch it and should call police.
Several major discoveries are attributed to UARS, including confirmation of the role of chlorofluorocarbons in ozone depletion and the chemical processes that create the ozone hole over Antarctica.
The satellite ran out of fuel in 2005 and was decommissioned.
UARS’ 10 instruments were all devised by U.S. universities.
Scientists at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder were the principal investigators on a UARS instrument that made precise measurements of the sun’s ultraviolet and far-ultraviolet radiation.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Inc. of Boulder built the pointed telescope subassembly for the University of Michigan. The device supplied light to a high-resolution Doppler imager used to study upper-atmospheric wind velocity.
The odds of UARS hitting someone anywhere on Earth are one in 3,200, NASA says. Just in case, the Federal Emergency Management Agency says it is standing by.
Only one person — Lottie Williams of Tulsa — has been confirmed as being hit by debris in 50 years of space activities. In 1997, a bit of a spent Delta II rocket floated down and hit Williams on the shoulder, but she wasn’t injured.
Ann Schrader: 303-954-1967 or aschrader@denverpost.com
About the UARS
Deployed: Sept. 15, 1991
Mission: Study Earth’s upper atmosphere
Expected to strike Earth: 26 pieces, ranging from 2 1/2 pounds to 349 pounds
Impact speeds: 98 mph to 240 mph, depending on debris size
Length of debris field: 500 miles
Odds of hitting a person: 1 in 3,200
Odds of hitting a specific person: 1 in 21 trillion
Source: NASA
