24 years after its launch, the European Space Agency is preparing to dismantle an artificial satellite

Arab Weather - After 24 years of analyzing the Earth's magnetic environment, the "Salsa" satellite is expected to disintegrate over the Pacific Ocean on Sunday, during its "guided" return to the atmosphere, the first operation of its kind for the European Space Agency.

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Salsa's mission and the end of Cluster

SALSA is one of four satellites in the Cluster mission that is nearing its end. Launched in 2000, the satellite has improved our understanding of the magnetosphere, which protects Earth from solar winds and makes our planet habitable.

The "guided" return process seeks to ensure that the satellite falls in a specific geographical area and at a specific time, without the need for direct control during its entry into the atmosphere, according to Agence France-Presse. To achieve this goal, ESA operators have carried out a series of maneuvers since January to ensure that "Salsa" returns to a remote, sparsely populated area in the South Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile.

It's the final dance for Salsa

The satellite has just gone to the fourth point in its orbit around Earth one last time and is now heading back towards our planet for the big finale. pic.twitter.com/P0u152aXa6

— ESA Cluster (@ESA_Cluster) September 7, 2024

Elliptical orbit of the satellite and the challenges

The return operation takes advantage of SALSA's elliptical orbit, which takes two and a half days to orbit the Earth. At its farthest point, it is 130,000 kilometers from Earth, while at perigee it is just a few hundred kilometers closer. Because of its sensitivity to the gravitational forces of the Moon and the Sun, the satellite's perigee altitude can vary by hundreds of kilometers from one orbit to another.

• Return and preparation details

The challenge was to ensure the moon would land in the last two orbits at an altitude of 110-120 kilometres and then 80 kilometres in the next orbit, where it would likely burn up completely, Bruno Sousa, head of operations for ESA's Inner Solar System missions, explained at a press conference.

• Monitoring the disintegration

As the satellite enters Earth’s atmosphere at an altitude of about 100 kilometers, friction and heat cause it to break apart, with some fragments likely reaching the surface. Scientists hope to pinpoint Salsa’s landing site to within a few hundred meters, allowing an aircraft to fly at an altitude of 10 kilometers to observe the disintegration and debris, which is expected to represent less than 10 percent of the original mass.

Post-Sales Satellite

The other three satellites in the Cluster constellation, scheduled to return to Earth in 2025 and 2026, will provide new data on observations at different entry speeds, angles and atmospheric conditions.

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