ROSAT: Another Satellite Falling in October 2011

ROSAT Satellite Falling to Earth in Late October

Just when you thought we were done with satellites falling to Earth, here's another item to make David Bowie and Lou Reed happy: Germany's defunct Roentgen Satellite (ROSAT) will fall from orbit in late October or early November 2011.

• UARS Satellite Tracker 2011
• When Will UARS Satellite Hit Earth?
  

Will the ROSAT Satellite Hit Anyone?

The ROSAT satellite will break up into around 30 pieces as it falls to Earth, and the pieces have roughly a 1 in 2,000 chance of hitting someone. Taking into account how sketchy these sorts of predictions are, those are still better odds than you'll get in Vegas.

The European Space Agency (ESA) will be tracking ROSAT's progress, and will know within a day which parts of the planet are not in danger of a satellite strike. Says Heiner Klinkrad of the ESA Space Debris Office (are they hiring?),

"The probability that ROSAT will strike German territory after re-entry is roughly to the order of 1:580. The risk of someone in Germany getting injured is to the order of about 1:700,000.

It is not possible to accurately predict ROSAT’s re-entry. The uncertainty will decrease as the moment of re-entry approaches. It will not be possible to make any kind of reliable forecast about where the satellite will actually come down until about one or two hours before the fact. It will however be possible to predict, about one day in advance, which geographical regions will definitely not be affected."

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With over 135 million pieces of space junk whizzing around up there, we should start getting used to stories like this.

Meanwhile, we're hoping that Bowie has enough time to put together a new Major Tom song.