A 5,000-pound dead satellite resembling a spaceship from Star Wars is hurtling towards Earth, but don’t worry—experts say situations like this happen “every week or two.”
Launched in 1995 by the European Space Agency from Kourou, French Guiana, the European Remote Sensing 2 (ERS-2) array spent over a decade-and-a-half observing the planet’s topography and weather events, including natural disasters in remote, hard-to-document regions. Alongside its sibling, ERS-1, the pair were considered the “most sophisticated Earth observation spacecraft” ever developed at the time of their deployment.
ERS-2 spotted! 📸🛰️
The ESA satellite is on a tumbling descent that will lead to its atmospheric reentry and break up this week.
These images of ERS-2 were captured by @heospace for @spacegovuk using cameras on board other satellites.#ERS2reentry pic.twitter.com/GTuubP6apJ
— ESA Operations (@esaoperations) February 19, 2024
In July 2011, however, the ESA decided to retire its “nominally” functioning ERS-2 and begin a scheduled deorbiting process. The satellite underwent 66 maneuvers over the ensuing month, using up its remaining fuel to descend from an altitude from roughly 487-miles to 356-miles above the Earth’s surface. Since then, ERS-2’s orbit has slowly decayed to its current point—caught in the planet’s gravitational pull, and picking up speed as it falls into the atmosphere.
On Sunday, the ESA posted grainy, black-and-white images to X taken last month by the Australian commercial imaging company, HEO, which show ERS-2 (then about 150-miles high) spiraling downwards during its final journey. From the camera’s vantage, the satellite certainly looks a lot like an incoming TIE Fighter from Star Wars.
But no need to evade Imperial scrutiny—or even fiery orbital debris, for that matter. ERS-2 is currently falling at a rate of over 6.2 miles per day, a speed expected to accelerate as atmospheric drag takes an…
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