The European Space Agency announced today, Saturday, the successful return of the European satellite “Aeolus” to Earth, after it completed its space mission in orbit, as part of an unprecedented maneuver aimed at reducing the risk of satellite debris falling to the Earth’s surface.
The Earth observation satellite penetrated the atmosphere in a controlled manner after maneuvers for several days aimed at lowering its orbit, and “Aeolus”, which weighed a little more than one ton and was operating at an altitude of 320 km, gradually descended to a height of 120 km, then penetrated the atmosphere and then Crash from Friday night to today.
“Aeolus succeeded in entering the trajectory we were setting over Antarctica, where the world’s smallest population lives,” said engineer Benjamin Bastida, responsible for space debris at the European Space Agency.
Controlled auxiliary maneuvers in the atmosphere are common on modern satellites. As these satellites approach the end of their work, they are removed from their orbit and directed towards a very specific area on Earth, Point Nemo in the South Pacific Ocean.
It is noteworthy that the “Aeolus” satellite was designed in the late 1990s and launched in 2018 to monitor winds.
