Defunct Indo-French satellite ‘Megha-Tropiques’ now in pieces, laid to rest in Pacific Ocean

After providing valuable scientific data and serving the science community for more than a decade, the Indo-French satellite 'Megha-Tropiques' (MT-1) now rests in peace at a remote location in the Pacific Ocean.

Just as they had intended, the Indian space agency, ISRO, successfully de-orbited the satellite (gradually brought the satellite closer to Earth from its orbit) and made it re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.

This process is a brutal one where the re-entering object undergoes sustained exposure to high speeds and temperatures well over 2500 degrees Celsius, thus completely burning it up.

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ISRO on Tuesday announced that the re-entry experiment was successfully, adding that they performed two 20-minute firings of the satellites on-board propulsion system.

This firing was done to ensure that the satellite gets pulled further into the influence of Earth's gravity and eventually burns up as it enters the denser layers of the Earth's atmosphere.

"The final perigee (the closest distance the satellite is from the earth) was estimated to be less than 80 km indicating that the satellite would enter the denser layers of the Earth's atmosphere and subsequently undergo structural disintegration. The re-entry aero-thermal flux analysis confirmed that there would be no surviving large debris fragments" ISRO said.

Based on telemetry data, ISRO also confirmed that the satellite re-entered Earth's atmosphere and would have disintegrated, with the final impact somewhere deep in the Pacific Ocean. The entire process of de-orbiting and re-entry was carried out by ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bengaluru.

The complex process of manoeuvring the satellite, lowering its orbit, facilitating re-entry and burning it up in the upper atmosphere is part of ISRO's effort to reduce space debris.

WION had earlier reported, based on a NASA revelation, that there are more than 47,000 pieces of space debris that are larger than 10cm in size. Had the de-orbiting not been done, MT-1 too could have ended up as a long-term resident in space, without serving any useful purpose.

While larger pieces of debris such as defunct satellites and rocket upper stages are easier to track, it is the smaller pieces of millimetre-sized debris that pose more of a threat to space assets and space-walking astronauts.

ISRO has taken up proactive measures to improve the compliance level with the internationally accepted guidelines on space debris mitigation, the Indian Space agency said.Efforts are underway to build indigenous capabilities for tracking and monitoring space objects to safeguard Indian space assets.

ISRO System for Safe and Sustainable Space Operations Management (IS4OM) has been established to spearhead such activities, ISRO added.

'Megha-Tropiques' was anIndo-French Joint Satellite Mission for studying the water cycle and energy exchanges in the tropics. The main objective of this mission is to understand the life cycle of convective systems that influence the tropical weather and climate and their role in associated energy and moisture budget of the atmosphere in tropical regions.

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