10 WORST SPACE DEBRIS EVENTS OF ALL TIME

10 WORST SPACE DEBRIS EVENTS OF ALL TIME
By SPACE.com

Growing Threat of Space Debris

The space around Earth is a crowded space packed with nearly 22,000 spent rocket stages, dead or dying satellites and countless crumbs of human-made orbital flotsam. An average of one object has re-entered Earth's atmosphere every day.

Here are 10 of the most memorable man-made things that have rained down on us.

10. Satellite Shootdown

The USS Lake Erie launches a Standard Missile-3 at a non-functioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite as it travelled in space

at more than 17,000 mph over the Pacific Ocean on Feb. 20, 2008.
Credit: Defense Dept. photo by U.S. Navy

The U.S. Navy intercepted its defunct spy satellite USA-193 on Feb. 20, 2008, sending a trail of debris that some amateur astronomers reported falling over the northwestern United States and Canada. Department of Defense officials said they hadn't recovered any debris larger than a football.

9. Noggin' Knocker

This 30 kg titanium pressurant tank also survived the re-entry of the Delta 2 second stage on 22 January 1997 but was found

farther downrange near Seguin, TX.
Credit: NASA

A woman in Turley, Oklahoma, got a noggin-knock in January 1997 when she was struck with a lightweight fragment of charred woven material. She was not injured. The sky junk was identified as debris from a Delta 2 booster, which re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 22, 1997. Other debris from that booster included a steel propellant tank and a titanium pressure sphere.

8. Mystery Ball

NASA launched the Gemini 5 spacecraft, August 21, 1965 at 0900 EST on a planned eight-day mission from Complex 19. Astronaut

Gordon Cooper was the Command Pilot and Charles Conrad the Pilot. This was the longest manned spaceflight at the time.
Credit: NASA

Several mysterious spheres turned up in Australia in the 1960s, with some speculating these balls could be connected with UFO phenomenon. One such titanium sphere was spotted in Merkanooka, Western Australia. Dubbed the Merkanooka ball, the metal sphere was later identified as a tank used for drinking water in the Gemini V spacecraft, which was launched on Aug. 21, 1965, and re-entered the atmosphere and splashed down into the Atlantic Ocean on Aug. 29 that year.

7. Toxic Touchdown

A secret Soviet-navy satellite called Cosmos 954, which was launched on Sept. 18, 1977, spiralled out of control. The spy radar antennas

each sported a compact nuclear reactor, making the re-entry one of the most frightening to date for people on the ground.
Credit: NASA

A secret Soviet-navy satellite called Cosmos 954, which was launched on Sept. 18, 1977, spiralled out of control. The spy radar antennas each sported a compact nuclear reactor, making the re-entry one of the most frightening to date for people on the ground. On Jan. 24, 1978, Cosmos 954 re-entered over Canada and shed debris across the frozen ground of the Canadian Arctic. Following the crash, the U.S. and Canada conducted overflights of the area and associated clean-up efforts.

6. Desert Dropdown

On 21 January 2001, a Delta 2 third stage, known as a PAM-D (Payload Assist Module - Delta), re-entered the atmosphere over the Middle

East. The titanium motor casing of the PAM-D, weighing about 70 kg, landed in Saudi Arabia about 240 km from the capital of Riyadh.
Credit: NASA

On Jan. 21, 2001, a Delta 2 third stage, known as a PAM-D (Payload Assist Module-Delta), re-entered the atmosphere over the Middle East. Its titanium motor casing, weighing about 154 pounds (70 kilograms), slammed down in Saudi Arabia, while a titanium pressurant tank landed near Seguin, Texas, and the main propellant tank plunked down near Georgetown, Texas.

5. Spare Space Parts

Solid rocket motor (SRM) slag. Aluminium oxide slag is a by-product of SRMs. Orbital SRMs used to boost satellites into higher orbits
are potentially a significant source of centimetre sized orbital debris. This piece was recovered from a test firing of a Shuttle
solid rocket booster.
Credit: NASA

In May 1966, spacecraft debris was spotted in the Rio Negro District of Brazil. The metal parts were identified as coming from a stage of the Saturn development test (SA-5) that launched in 1964 and which re-entered the atmosphere on April 30, 1966. The litter included a piece of lightweight metal, an oval-shaped chunk of metal, a black beehive-shaped structure and four pieces of fragile wire.

4. Columbia Debris

An overview of the Columbia debris reconstruction hangar in 2003 shows the orbiter outline on the floor with some of the 78,760 pieces
identified to that date. More than 84,000 pieces of shuttle debris were recovered, some of which is included in a traveling
NASA display to stress safety.
Credit: NASA

On Feb. 1, 2003, during its return to Earth, Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry, killing seven astronauts. The catastrophic, lethal accident shed thousands of pieces of debris across a 28,000 square mile (72,520 square kilometres) area in eastern Texas and western Louisiana. More than 80,000 recovered pieces were stored for follow-up research.

3. Sonic Snow

NASA astronauts deploy the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory in during the STS-37 shuttle mission in April 1991.
Credit: NASA

After completing 51,658 orbits around Earth, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory was intentionally deorbited due to a crippled gyroscope on June 4, 2000. As the spacecraft tumbled through Earth's atmosphere, its solar panels and antennas were thought to pop off first, while other parts likely melted. About 13,227 pounds (6,000 kilograms) of debris from the observatory splashed down into the Pacific Ocean southeast of Hawaii.

2. Russian Heavyweight

The Mir Space Station and Earth limb observed from the Orbiter Endeavour during NASA's STS-89 mission in 1998.
Credit: NASA

In the world of space litter, the heavyweight champ would have to be Mir, heftier in its day than any object (except the moon) to orbit Earth. The 15-year-old Russian space station began its suicidal nosedive on March 23, 2001, as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere above the Pacific Ocean near Fiji. Though most of the station, weighing 286,600 pounds (130,000 kilograms), burned up in the atmosphere, about 1,500 fragments reached Earth's surface. Beachgoers in Nadi, Fiji, snapped photos of blazing bits of Mir debris and there were reports of sonic booms caused by heavy debris.

1. Skylab Plummet

The U.S. space station Skylab in its prime during the mid-1970s.
Credit: NASA

Weighing in at 77 tons (70,000 kilograms), the first and only solely-U.S. space station Skylab launched into orbit on May 14, 1973. Its orbiting operations came to a premature end on July 11, 1979, when Skylab plummeted through the atmosphere, sending chunks of debris raining down over an area stretching from the Southeastern Indian Ocean across a sparsely populated section of Western Australia.

[Source: SPACE.com. Edited.]