The 600kg Van Allen probe A will re-enter Tuesday evening, with most of it burning before reaching Earth’s surface
Parts of a giant Nasa satellite will crash to Earth on Tuesday evening, the US space agency is warning – but the chance of being struck is extremely low.
According to the US military’s Space Force, the roughly 1,323lb (600kg) spacecraft, one of twin probes launched in 2012 to investigate the Van Allen radiation belt, is estimated to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at about 7.45pm EDT.
Most of the craft, it said in a prediction published Monday, will burn up on re-entry, yet some components are expected to survive. There is a small chance, which the Space Force calculates at 1 in 4,200, that somebody on Earth could be harmed.
“Nasa and Space Force will continue to monitor the re-entry and update predictions,” the statement said, adding there was an initial uncertainty of plus or minus 24 hours in the calculations.
