Falling satellite poses little risk when it lands, expert says

YOUNGSTOWN — The director of Youngstown State University’s planetarium says it’s not likely that a failing U.S. spy satellite would land on anyone when it drops back to Earth.

There’s a very, very minimal chance that someone would be hit, said Dr. Patrick Durrell, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

The Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at The Aerospace Corp. in California says the odds of someone on the ground being hit by a piece of space junk is less than 1 in 1 trillion — that’s a 1 with 12 zeroes after it.

The odds of getting struck by lightning are a lot better — only 1 in 1.4 million.

Durrell said the only person known to have been injured by a piece of falling space junk was a woman in Alabama in the 1950s who suffered a leg injury when a football-size piece of material fell through her roof.

“There’s no point to people to start buying steel umbrellas or something like that,” he said.

Nevertheless, the Defense Department has announced that it intends to shoot a missile at the crippled U.S. spy satellite, perhaps this week, to break it up so all of its pieces burn up as it falls through the atmosphere.

Authorities say the satellite, which hasn’t responded to orders from the ground since shortly after it was launched in December 2006, is slowly falling back to Earth.

The danger is that the satellite contains hydrazine, a toxic rocket fuel, and authorities fear the fuel tank might survive a re-entry through the Earth’s atmosphere and leak the fuel when it hits the ground.

The concern is that about half of the 5,000-pound satellite, which is about the size of a small bus — would survive re-entry.

The Defense Department estimated that there could be sufficient fuel to spill over an area the size of two football fields.

The government has denied suggestions that it wants to destroy the spy satellite to prevent any secrets from falling into the hands of another nation. There have also been denials that this will be some sort of anti-satellite weapons system test.

The Defense Department has said it’s strictly a matter of safety, an effort to ensure that none of the satellite will reach the Earth’s surface intact and harm someone.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and Vindy.com.