Spacecraft's Study of Sun Ends Today;Solar Max Heads For Fiery Reentry

From: The Washington Post | Date: December 1, 1989| Author: | Copyright information

Solar Max, the first satellite repaired in orbit by astronauts, will plow into the Earth's atmosphere and burn up at around 10:45 EST tonight, according to calculations by the U.S. Space Command.

Several large pieces of the 2.5-ton satellite could survive the fiery reentry, but the odds are high that they will splash harmlessly into an ocean or land on an unpopulated area, according to engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, which built the satellite and controlled its 9 1/2-year mission.

Trackers at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base, Colo., will not try to predict ...

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