In February 2024, a 2.3-tonne European satellite fell back to Earth and burned up over the Pacific. What makes it worth telling is how much work went into making that fall as responsible as possible.
ERS-2 was a European Space Agency Earth-observation satellite, retired back in 2011. Before shutting it down, ESA spent the satellite's last fuel on dozens of maneuvers to lower its orbit, so that it would reenter years sooner and more predictably. It finally came down on its own on February 21, 2024, over the North Pacific. No damage was reported.
- Object: ERS-2 (ESA)
- Mass: about 2.3 tonnes
- Retired: 2011
- Disposal: orbit lowered with remaining fuel
- Reentry: February 21, 2024, over the Pacific
The responsible end of the scale
This is what doing it right looks like, and the cost of it is the whole point.
Thirteen years and a tank of fuel, for a single satellite that happened to still have working thrusters. The overwhelming majority of dead objects get no such send-off, because they cannot move themselves at all. Affordable, repeatable disposal for hardware that cannot deorbit itself is the gap, and closing it is the entire Space Waste roadmap.
ERS-2 did the honorable thing. The trick is making the honorable thing the easy, default thing.
See the roadmap →Sources: ESA Space Debris · European Remote-Sensing Satellite