City of Science in Tunis to monitor uncontrolled re-entry of ERS-2 satellite into Earth’s atmosphere

The City of Science in Tunis is monitoring the uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere of the European Earth observation satellite ERS-2, which was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1995 and has been out of service for 13 years. Hichem Ben Yahya, a scientific supervisor at the City of Science told TAP Tuesday the City of Sciences was constantly monitoring the fall of the ERS-2 satellite using computer applications. He added that the satellite should burn up almost completely in the atmosphere on Wednesday, February 21, 2024. The probability of one of these pieces of debris hitting a person on the ground is less than one in a hundred billion, according to the ESA blog dedicated to the mission. ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) predicts the satellite's final re-entry into the lower layers of the atmosphere at 11:14 GMT on Wednesday, with a margin of uncertainty of plus or minus 9 hours. Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse