Satellite with Dutch climate instrument going down after 30 years

Almost 30 years after its launch, an important Dutch space instrument is coming to an end. The satellite it is on will probably return to Earth’s atmosphere on Wednesday. The friction will cause it to explode. It is not clear whether debris from the satellite will survive the explosion and could hit the Earth’s surface.

The instrument is called the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME), developed by TNO in Delft. It recorded not only the concentrations of ozone but also, for example, the chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere. The idea of the pollution meter came in the 1980s from the Dutchman Paul Crutzen, who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1995 for his research into the ozone layer.

The GOME is built into the European Earth observation satellite ERS-2. Its mission ended in 2011.

Satellites are pulled back to Earth by gravity and friction. As long as they still have fuel on board, they can resist. That is how the ISS gets a boost higher every month. At the end of a mission, flight control can use the last remnants of fuel for a controlled demise. The satellite is then steered so that debris splashes into the southern Pacific Ocean. That is thousands of kilometers away from inhabited areas, so there is no danger to people.

However, the demise of the RES-2 is uncontrolled. As a result, it is not clear where it will end up. It is also unknown when exactly the satellite will return to the atmosphere. According to the most recent calculations, this could happen after 8:00 p.m. Dutch time, but with a considerable margin. It could be hours earlier or hours later. That depends on the friction that the satellite encounters at the edge of the atmosphere, and that friction depends on the activity of the sun.