Another one bites the dust. Just under a month after a dead NASA climate satellite crashed harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean in an uncontrolled re-enry, a defunct German X-ray satellite is headed for much the same fate.The Roentgen satellite, aka ROSAT, launched in 1990 by the U.S., was a collaboration between NASA, the British space agency and the Germany space agency. Having exhausted its fuel in 1997 and suffered permanent damage after pointing its camera directly at the sun in 1998, the defunct satellite continued to orbit the earth as a piece of space junk. Now in a decaying orbit, it is expected to re-enter the earth in an uncontrolled free-fall between Saturday, October 22 and Sunday, October 23, according to the German Aerospace Agency (via Space Policy Online).
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=105526