Aeolus was in orbit around Earth for four years, eleven months, and six days. For three hours at the very end, a very brief period, it was space debris. This new animation is made from the last eight images ever taken of ESA's wind-profiling mission, showing it beginning to tumble as it was buffeted
Aeolus reentered over Antarctica on July 28, 2023, at 20:40-42 CEST. By turning Aeolus’s natural, uncontrolled reentry into an assisted one, and choosing the best reentry orbit, the already very small risk from any surviving fragments landing near populated areas was made a further 150 times less risky. Credit: ESA“Spacecraft operators are used to being in a dialogue with their missions, but debris can’t talk.
This was the last time the mission teams saw Aeolus. Still whole, it was just two hours from falling to pieces in Earth’s atmosphere over Antarctica, far from inhabited regions.
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