Another dead NASA satellite came crashing down to Earth on Wednesday night, and the estimate from officials that its chance of hitting “anyone on Earth” was “low” proved to be true.
After more than two decades in space, the RHESSI satellite, or the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, re-entered Earth after observing solar flares and coronal mass ejections from 2002 to 2018.
On Thursday morning, the Department of Defense confirmed that the satellite, weighing 660 pounds, re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over the Sahara Desert region the previous day, at around 8:21 p.m. EST.
NASA shared that it expected most of the spacecraft to burn up as it traveled through the atmosphere, but for some components to survive as they came crashing down to Earth.
There haven’t been any reports of anyone being injured by the reentry of the spacecraft. NASA shared before the reentry that the odds of someone on Earth being harmed by it was 1 in 2,467.
Throughout its 16 years on the job, as it was decommissioned in 2018 due to “communications difficulties,” the satellite recorded more than 100,000 solar events.
The space agency shared that the satellite has helped NASA scientists better “understand the underlying physics of how such powerful bursts of energy are created.”
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