1.12.2021
On November 28, Colombia observed a curious event: what seemed to be a meteor falling on Earth. An event that several citizens of the country recorded that night and that could not be seen from Spain. But far from being a natural celestial object, the protagonist was a satellite of the Starlink constellation that was developed and launched by SpaceX.
On the night of that same day, some users from the South American country uploaded videos of a space object passing through the earth’s atmosphere. Due to its appearance, they thought it was a falling meteorite. Although it has finally been shown that its origin has been the failure of one of the satellites that provide global connectivity to the Internet and whose end was the disintegration in the uncontrolled re-entry into the atmosphere.
The satellite in question that fell to Earth was the Starlink 3123, launched on the Starlink 4-1 mission two weeks ago. This satellite failed to function correctly, and from SpaceX they left the satellite in a very low orbit, with high atmospheric friction.
Meteorite?
A METEORITE IN CARTAGENA. pic.twitter.com/kihK7skZMP
– Hele (@JoyceTomaFotos) November 29, 2021
Once the satellite goes down, it makes contact with the atmosphere and it disintegrates for the reentry it performs. This reentry leaves the characteristic red fiery trail usually associated with meteorites. The point is that it was estimated that said re-entry was this Tuesday, November 30.
Failure of Starlink satellites is not uncommon. It is estimated that approximately 3% of the satellites SpaceX has launched they have already failed. A figure that is currently a low failure rate, but could become a problem when Starlink achieves its 42,000 satellites by 2030.
Does anyone know if this is a meteorite? It was seen today from Montería, Colombia pic.twitter.com/nnemBi8BiS
– Catalina García H (@CatalinaGarciaH) November 29, 2021
In this case, satellite 3123 re-entered the atmosphere because it failed to function. In this way, the satellite is prevented from reaching to collide with other satellites causing thousands of pieces of space debris to be generated that can generate even more problems. A possible scenario for which SpaceX has already been criticized before since the Starlink project began to offer Internet connection throughout the world.
Quelle: CVBJ.biz