At approximately 18:17 CET (17:17 UTC) on Wednesday 21 February 2024, ESA’s ERS-2 satellite completed its atmospheric reentry over the North Pacific Ocean. We followed the reentry before, du...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2024/03/04/ers-2-mission-and-reentry-in-images/
ESA’s European Remote Sensing 2 satellite (ERS-2) was recently spotted tumbling as it descends through the atmosphere. These images were captured by cameras on board other satellites in January...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2024/02/19/ers-2-spotted-in-orbit-by-other-satellites/
The European Remote Sensing 2 satellite (ERS-2) was launched in 1995 at a time when the notion of climate change was far less appreciated and understood than it is today. Together with ERS-1, it ...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2024/02/16/the-ers-2-reentry-in-context/
ESA’s ERS-2 satellite will reenter Earth’s atmosphere in February 2024. This page contains answers to some frequently asked questions about the satellite, its mission and its reentry.
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2024/02/05/ers-2-reentry-frequently-asked-questions/
*This post provides live updates from ESA’s Space Debris Office on the atmospheric reentry of ESA’s ERS-2 satellite. New updates will be added at the top of this page, so check back daily for...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2024/02/05/ers-2-reentry-live-updates/
ESA’s ERS-2 satellite will reenter Earth’s atmosphere in February 2024. Daily updates will be provided on ESA's Rocket Science blog as we approach the day of reentry,
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2024/02/05/ers-2-reentry-homepage/
*This post provides live updates from ESA’s Main Control Room in Darmstadt, Germany, as engineers and operators guide Aeolus home. New updates will be added at the top of the page, so check bac...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2023/07/24/aeolus-reentry-live/
It’s a story with all the elements. Our fiery Sun has been making life more complicated for teams attempting to guide ESA’s wind mission as it falls back to Earth, targeting any surviving deb...
ESA’s keeper of the winds is coming home. After completing its mission, Aeolus has been falling from its operational altitude of 320 km since 19 June. Operators at ESA mission control in German...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2023/07/19/aeolus-assisted-reentry-when-and-where/
Aeolus will return to Earth in a matter of weeks. In its short lifetime of just under five years, the satellite has orbited Earth at 320 km to measure global winds using a laser. Keeping Aeolus o...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2023/07/11/aeolus-reentry-behind-the-scenes-flying-a-satellite/
ESA’s wind mission, Aeolus, will soon return to Earth in a first-of-its-kind assisted reentry. In the coming weeks we will interview some key members of the Aeolus team to discover more about f...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2023/07/05/aeolus-reentry-behind-the-scenes-aladins-engineer/
The countdown is truly on now for Aeolus as it begins its journey home. This week marks a significant milestone in the reentry process. End-of-life tests have ended. Aeolus will now start to natu...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2023/06/26/aeolus-begins-its-journey-home/
Aeolus will soon plummet to Earth. Currently orbiting 320 km above Earth's surface, it is being kept in orbit with the remaining fuel onboard the spacecraft. This fuel will soon run out, and the ...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2023/06/06/aeolus-assisted-reentry-countdown-begins-here/
Mission control teams have now demonstrated that the short-range radios on Mars Express and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, normally used to communicate with landers and rovers on the surface, can...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2021/11/16/esa-mars-orbiters-two-for-one-science/
**This post describes an entirely hypothetical asteroid impact scenario, playing out during this year’s Planetary Defense Conference** Daily updates are added to the top of the bottom of the p...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2021/04/26/deep-fake-impact/
In singing the lyrics, the performers make reference to many of the real-life specialist roles at ESA’s mission control centre, which is not surprising as many of them are the real-life special...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2020/12/14/european-space-ody/
The PSA What’s new? The dataset release also has labels associated with each individual VMC image that contain further metadata, such as the Martian year and solar longitude (Ls), and an indica...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2020/10/16/vmc-data-now-on-the-planetary-science-archive/
What is a collision avoidance manoeuvre? ESA spacecraft dodges large constellation Satellite studying Earth’s diminishing ice swerves to avoid collision ESA teams respond to threat to SWARM mis...
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2020/03/19/avoiding-space-smashes-while-social-distancing/