No one on the ground has ever been injured by falling space debris, but there have been examples of property damage caused by space debris.
NASA’s two Van Allen probes were launched into elliptical orbits ranging from a few hundred miles above Earth to an apogee, or high point, of about 20,000 miles. The orbits are inclined 10 degrees to the equator, limiting the risk of injury or damage in the tropics. NASA ended the mission in 2019 when the satellites ran out of fuel.
At the time, NASA engineers expected the spacecraft to re-enter the atmosphere in 2034. But according to NASA, more solar activity than expected caused the atmosphere to expand outward, increasing atmospheric pressure on satellites beyond initial estimates. Van Allen Probe B is expected to re-enter before 2030, with similar risks to the public.
Both spacecraft were built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. NASA said the mission made several major discoveries, including “the first data showing the existence of a transient third radiation belt, which can form during intense solar activity.”
Several NASA satellites have re-entered the atmosphere without complying with the government’s risk standards. One of the satellites, the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, fell out of orbit in 2018 with a 1 in 1,000 chance of causing harm to anyone on the ground. no one was hurt. RXTE was launched in 1995, just four months before NASA issued its first standard on orbital debris mitigation and reentry risk management.
Although NASA has exceeded its standards before, the US government is not the top offender when it comes to re-entry risks. China launched four heavy-lift Long March 5B rockets between 2020 and 2022, releasing their giant core stages in orbit to fall back to Earth. The four released rocket cores, each weighing about 24 tons, unrolled and re-entered the atmosphere. Two of them dropped debris on the ground in Ivory Coast and Borneo, but no injuries were reported.
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