Failed Russian Satellite Angara A5 Could Make An Uncontrolled Re-Entry This Week; Should We Worry?

A piece of a Russian rocket that was launched in late December is falling through orbit and may re-enter the atmosphere this week.

On Dec. 28, the Angara A5 rocket took out from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. It was the heavy-lift rocket's third test flight, and it was carrying a 2.4-tonne dummy payload.

Persei, a new upper stage (the portion at the top of the rocket), was used for the flight.

(Photo : KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - A Russian Soyuz 2.1a rocket carrying Lomonosov, Aist-2D and SamSat-218 satellites lifts off from the launch pad at the new Vostochny cosmodrome outside the city of Uglegorsk, about 200 kms from the city of Blagoveshchensk in the far eastern Amur region on April 28, 2016.

Failed Russian Satellite to Make a Re-Entry

According to Spaceflight Now, the Persei upper stage was supposed to perform a series of engine burns to maneuver into an orbit around geostationary height, some 36,000 kilometers above Earth.

The initial burn to propel the Persei stage into a parking orbit went off without a hitch, but the remaining burns required to reach a higher orbit were not carried out.

The Persei upper stage, with its satellite mock-up payload probably still attached, was seen in a low orbit between 177km and 200km in height, considerably short of the objective, according to US military monitoring data.

Astronomer Joseph Remis estimated that the upper stage will re-enter Earth's atmosphere uncontrollably around 6.44 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 6, with a range of plus or minus six hours. Remis shared the update on Twitter.

Update: obj. 50505 IPM 3/PERSEY decay prediction: January 05, 2022 UTC 17h44mn ± 6h. pic.twitter.com/vgc9DJSCa8
— Joseph Remis (@jremis) January 4, 2022

The SAT-Flare satellite monitoring website has created a map based on that forecast, depicting a sequence of bands orbiting the Earth where the upper stage may re-enter. The lower South Island is traversed by one of those several bands.

Experts told Texas News Today that the military satellite's parts are expected to fall into the Pacific Ocean. As a result, inhabited regions will not be jeopardized. However, some space experts believe it is still too early to estimate the area that would be impacted by the incoming space debris. Meanwhile, Daily Mail said some of the Angara A5 rocket's debris would burn up while approaching the planet's atmosphere.

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Is It Really Possible To Anticipate A Re-Entry?

Dr. Duncan Steel, a Nelson-based space scientist who has worked for Nasa and the European Space Agency, said it was impossible to anticipate a re-entry site until the very last moment.

Every day, 1-2 tonnes of orbiting space trash re-entered the atmosphere, according to The Economist in 2019. Even though four-fifths of the debris was burned away, some bits were still large enough to be dangerous.

The report said five sailors got hurt aboard a Japanese ship on the coast of Siberia in 1969, and a woman in Oklahoma was grazed by a fragment of the falling rocket in 1997.

Science Times likewise reported the wreckage of an out-of-control Chinese Long Mar. 5 B rocket re-entered the atmosphere in May 2021, above the Indian Ocean.

The rocket successfully launched the first stage of China's space station into orbit. Still, China has been accused of being irresponsible, if not dangerous, in failing to manage the rocket's leftovers and ensuring they dropped safely into the ocean.

Here's What Happened to Angara A5 Rocket Launch

According to Ars Technica, the Russian space agency spent more than two decades creating the Angara rocket family.

Before the last launch, the heavy-lift A5 variant has completed two successful development flights in 2014 and 2020.

The Russians had expected to start flying military payloads on the Angara A5 after the most recent test flight and likely use it to compete for commercial satellite launches.

Russian authorities planned to get away from the hazardous propellants used earlier with the new Persei upper stage, which was utilized on the most recent launch.