A planer has captured the first pic of a spacecraft reentering the Earth ’s atmosphere from a eminent - speed orbit as it flew over the South Pacific Ocean .
On September 8 , the first of the European Space Agency ’s ( ESA ’s ) Cluster satellites – named Salsa – made its concluding journeying to Earth . Launched in the yr 2000 , the four satellites that make up the cluster have spend their time in orbital cavity dipping in and out of the planet ’s magnetic field , investigating how the Sun and the Earth interact .
" Cluster is a configuration of four spacecraft fly in formation around Earth,“ESA explain . " They relay the most detailed entropy ever about how the solar wind affects our planet in three dimensions . "
When the planet were launched , place rubble regulations were n’t what they are today , and it was ask that the spacecraft would fall to Earth " course " with minuscule control over where it would ultimately crash . That is n’t ideal , however , and so the space authority responsible for it has monitored it as its mission came to its end , making registration to its path for bear on it into the atmosphere over the ocean where any debris that hold up reentry will not cause scathe to unsuspicious humankind or animals below .
“ Salsa ’s reentry was always going to be very grim risk , but we want to advertise the boundaries and reduce the threat even further , exhibit our commitment to ESA ’s Zero Debris approach , " ESA Director of Operations , Rolf Densing , explained in astatement . “ By studying how and when Salsa and the other three Cluster satellites burn up in the atmosphere , we are learning a great mountain about reentry science , hopefully allowing us to employ the same approach to other satellites when they come to the ending of their spirit . ”
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The satellite came down safely , and was note in a photograph taken from a plane . The ESA hop-skip that the re - entrance will go down in history for helping the outer space agency contribute the way in sustainable space geographic expedition .
