{"id":471316,"date":"2026-03-12T10:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T10:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/471316\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T10:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T10:57:10","slug":"nasa-spacecraft-crashes-back-to-earth-in-uncontrolled-reentry-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/471316\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Spacecraft Crashes Back to Earth in Uncontrolled Reentry : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2013 An old NASA science satellite<\/a> plunged uncontrolled from orbit and reentered over the Pacific on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The US Space Force said<\/a> the Van Allen Probe A came in west of the Galapagos Islands.<\/p>\n

NASA expected some of the 1,323-pound (600-kilogram) spacecraft to survive entry, with most of it burning up in the atmosphere<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The space agency put the risk of bodily harm at 1-in-4,200.<\/p>\n

Its twin, the Van Allen Probe B, is still orbiting Earth, but no longer functioning.<\/p>\n

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Launched in 2012, the two spacecraft flew through the Van Allen radiation belts<\/a> that surround Earth, studying them for seven years before ceasing operation.<\/p>\n

When the satellites ran out of fuel in 2019, NASA anticipated them remaining in orbit until 2034.<\/p>\n

But the intense solar activity<\/a> over the past several years hastened the A probe’s demise, the space agency said.<\/p>\n

The B probe is not expected to reenter before 2030.<\/p>\n

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Related: Confirmed: Humanity Changed an Object’s Orbit Around The Sun For The First Time<\/a><\/p>\n

Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek said all re-entries are difficult to predict, but this one was especially challenging given its eccentric, lopsided orbit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2013 An old NASA science satellite plunged uncontrolled from orbit and reentered over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-471316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}