After orbiting the Earth for more than four decades, a rocket stage that weighed one and a half ton and was used to launch a surveillance satellite in 1980 has recently re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. Although only a few fragments of the Soviet Vostok-2M Blok E rocket are believed to have survived the intense heat during the descent, it marks the end of its long journey after being left in orbit around the Earth for an indefinite period following the launch, which was a common practice at the time.
Jonathan McDowell, a prominent astronomer, and expert on orbital tracking stated on Twitter that the rocket had been inactive since the mid-1980s and there was no way to steer it during re-entry. Due to friction with the Earth's atmosphere, the rocket's orbit gradually decreased in size over time, as reported by Forbes.
A bird flies over a pavilion under construction near a full scale model of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's Vostok 1 rocket at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre (VDNKh) - a trade show and amusement park - in Moscow on March 4, 2020. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP) (Photo by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)
Soviet Rocket Re-entry
The Aerospace Corporation also monitored the re-entry of the rocket, which occurred over the Novaya Zemlya region in the far northern Arctic region of Russia. According to McDowell, the rocket was of significant size, making it possible that some parts of it survived the re-entry and landed on the ground, but they are most likely located either in remote areas of Russia or in the Arctic Ocean.
Although the rocket weighed 3,000 pounds, it was not as much of a concern as the Chinese Long March rockets, which can weigh over 20 tons and have had a few uncontrolled re-entries in recent years, following a different Forbes report. Therefore, it was easier to monitor the Soviet Vostok-2M Blok E rocket during its descent, as it was not as massive as those rockets.
Most contemporary rockets are outfitted with propulsion systems that enable them to be directed towards controlled re-entries, frequently targeting sparsely populated regions on the Earth's surface, such as the southern Pacific. In a way, even though it was uncontrolled, the re-entry of the Soviet rocket made the near-Earth environment somewhat safer by removing a massive object from orbit.
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The Kessler Syndrome
Had the rocket been involved in a collision while in orbit, it could have fragmented into hundreds or thousands of smaller pieces, resulting in an increased risk of future collisions. The potential domino effect resulting from collisions in orbit could trigger a phenomenon known as Kessler Syndrome, a catastrophic scenario in which the accumulation of debris makes it too hazardous for satellites to operate in space.
NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler came up with the idea for the Kessler syndrome. According to a theory put forth by Kessler in 1978, there are so many objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) as a result of space pollution that collisions between objects could set off a cascade in which each collision produces space debris that raises the possibility of subsequent collisions.
Furthermore, in 2009, Kessler reported that modeling findings indicated that the debris environment was already unstable, meaning that any attempt to achieve a small debris environment free of growth by removing sources of previous debris will probably fail because fragments from upcoming collisions will be generated faster than atmospheric drag will remove them. One implication is that over many generations, satellite use and space activities may become more challenging due to the distribution of debris in orbit.
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