Tonight, the European Sentinel-1A satellite will have to perform a maneuver to dodge space debris – part of a rocket that exploded 30 years ago and is now approaching more than 50,000 kilometers per hour, with a collision probability greater than 1 in 800 announced by the European Space Agency (ESA), Which, with the European Commission, operates the Copernicus Program for Earth Observation by Satellites.
In the past few hours, Sentinel-1A has already received orders to rise 100 meters above the expected point of the nearest point to the wreck.
Avoidance maneuvers are now routinely performed, especially by satellites moving in crowded low Earth orbit. But on this occasion, the disruptive space weather of recent days will complicate the technicians’ work a bit. The sudden peak of solar activity actually increased the resistance of the atmosphere, making it necessary to reprogram the return maneuver that would return Sentinel-1A to its original orbit.
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