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A retired NASA satellite came crashing back to Earth on Wednesday (March 11), splashing down over the eastern Pacific Ocean after nearly 14 years in orbit.
The U.S. Space Force confirmed that Van Allen Probe A re-entered Earth's atmosphere at approximately 6:37 a.m. ET, coming down west of the Galápagos Islands. The re-entry happened about 12 hours later than originally predicted, though still within the expected margin of error.
The 1,323-pound spacecraft was launched in August 2012 alongside its twin, Van Allen Probe B, on a mission to study the Van Allen radiation belts, the rings of charged particles trapped by Earth's magnetic field that shield our planet from solar radiation and cosmic storms.
NASA expected most of the probe to burn up as it tore through the atmosphere, though some components may have survived the fall. The space agency put the odds of any surviving debris causing harm to a person at one in 4,200, a risk NASA characterized as "low."
The mission itself, originally designed to last just two years, far exceeded expectations. The twin probes flew through the Van Allen belts from 2012 to 2019, gathering data on how charged particles are gained and lost within those rings. Among the mission's biggest findings was the first confirmed evidence of a transient third radiation belt, which can form during periods of intense solar activity.
The mission officially ended in 2019 when both spacecraft ran out of fuel and could no longer orient themselves toward the Sun. At that point, NASA expected both probes to stay in orbit until around 2034. However, the intense solar activity of recent years sped up Probe A's orbital decay, pulling it back to Earth far sooner than anticipated.
Van Allen Probe B remains in orbit but is no longer operational. It is not expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere before 2030.