All things that go up must eventually come down. NASA expects the Van Allen Probe A satellite to come crashing back to Earth after a 14-year journey through space. The agency predicts that the probe will begin re-entry around 7:45 p.m. ET on Tuesday but says that time may be off by as much as 24 hours, meaning it could come down at any point in the next day or two.
Launched in 2012, the Van Allen Probe A is one of two satellites that NASA launched into orbit around the Van Allen radiation belt, which exists around Earth due to solar winds caught in the Earth’s magnetosphere. The probes were supposed to remain in space for only two years, but ultimately measured radiation for seven years before running out of fuel in 2019. Without fuel, the probes couldn’t orient themselves toward the sun to power their solar panels, and both
...Keep reading this article on CNET.
