German dead satellite Rosat de-orbited today towards four o’clock in the morning EU time, almost a day earlier than previously expected. According to US military information, the satellite’s impact site is estimated just off the coast of Myanmar in the Bengal Sea, following a long entry pass above the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. No damage has been reported so far, and it is still unclear, if any parts of the satellite have reached land at all.
The German space observatory Rosat has been launched in 1990 and was a breakthrough in X-Ray astronomy. Since it became uncontrollable 1999, the re-entry was just a question of time. Earth’s gravitation pulls every object in space, while the Sun’s plasma pushes them towards our planet. Rosat is one of the first large objects smashing down from space, while Hundreds of Thousand pieces of space debris are still on the waiting list for the next century.