GOCE satellite, the European Space Agency: difficult to fall on ... - The Messenger

No impact on Italy in the morning of fragments of the satellite Goce crazy. This is explained by the Civil Defence, reporting that the time window of prediction was again moved forward, opening at 10 and closing at 9.35 today to tomorrow, Monday 11. Winds still pending, therefore, for the one-ton satellite mad long 5.3 meters for its aerodynamic shape is considered the “Ferrari of space.”

The risk that fragments of GOCE (Gravity Field and Steady -state Ocean Circulation Explorer) may fall on Italy is “extremely low”, said the head of the agency Ansa Goce mission, Rune Floberghagen, the European Space Agency (ESA). Do not, therefore, agree with the analysis made by the European Space Agency (ESA) the claims of Civil Protection in relation to risk of falling on Italy fragments of the satellite. “The figures released yesterday and today by the Civil Defence – said Floberghagen – are not supported by the analysis of the ESA.”

However, it is still possible, argues the Civil Protection, but exclude the remote possibility that one or more parts can fall in Italy in the other two windows already mentioned: from 19:44 to 20:24 today (potentially affecting Valle d’Aosta, Piedmont, Liguria and Sardinia), and from 7:48 to 8:28 tomorrow (involving potentially Molise, Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily).

The Italian Space Agency, which will continue to release periodically available forecasts of return in order to maintain the whole system of civil protection updated, points out that, “in because of the behavior of Goce, time windows of risk on Italy will be gradually phased out or confirmed a few hours before or close to the same return. “

The inability to know when and where the fragments will fall due to the large number of factors that continually change the orientation of the satellite, such as the influence of solar and geomagnetic activity.

Launched in 2009, Goce was the first satellite to provide the map of the gravitational field of the Earth. His run ended on October 21 last year, when its ion engine has stopped.

The impact with the atmosphere is provided at the altitude of about 80 km. At that moment the satellite should shatter, the majority of which will burn on impact. The fragments direct on Earth will be about 20% of the mass of the satellite, for a total of 40 or 50 and with a total weight of between 200 and 250 kilograms. “We’re talking about a very small risk,” noted Floberghagen yet.

Similarly the position of the head of the ESA that deals with space debris, Heiner Klinkrad, for whom “it is 250,000 times more likely to win in the German Lottery. “