{"id":793815,"date":"2025-02-22T15:15:05","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T20:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=793815"},"modified":"2025-02-22T15:15:05","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T20:15:05","slug":"falcon-9-debris-lights-up-european-skies-before-crashing-into-poland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=793815","title":{"rendered":"Falcon-9 debris lights up European skies before crashing into Poland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket from the Starlink Group 11-4 mission failed to deorbit as planned on February 2, re-entering the atmosphere on February 19. It was visible across European skies after entering over the Irish Sea at 03:43 UTC<\/p>\n<p>The rocket debris was sighted across Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and England, with its re-entry track extending to Poland and Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>The event was confirmed by the Polish Space Agency (POLSA), which reported that the rocket, weighing approximately 4 tons, belonged to the SpaceX Starlink Group 11-4 mission, launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on February 1, 2025.<\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"reddit-embed-bq\" style=\"height:610px\" data-embed-showusername=\"false\" data-embed-height=\"740\"><p>Asteroid\/satellite falling apart over Berlin?<br \/>byu\/TrackStark inberlin<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n<p>POLSA stated that the trajectory of the object was known to them and other responsible services in Europe, which were monitoring the risk of artificial space objects entering the Earth\u2019s atmosphere. Pieces of the rocket were recovered in Poland, with experts suggesting that some debris may have also landed in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A Falcon 9 upper stage (#62878), which was launched on 1 February 2025, reentered the atmosphere over Europe at approximately 04:46 CET this morning.<\/p>\n<p>Video credit: Ludi, taken from Leipzig Central Railway Station, Germany, and used with permission <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xw6YWWeaVG\">pic.twitter.com\/xw6YWWeaVG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 ESA Operations (@esaoperations) <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/esaoperations\/status\/1892178390083355054?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 19, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Falcon 9 second stage from the Starlink 11-4 launch failed to  deorbit itself on Feb 2. It reentered over Northern Europe last night,  with entry over the Irish Sea at 0343 UTC Feb 19 and the reentry track  extending to Poland and Ukraine a couple of minutes later <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UzvsiHPZX8\">pic.twitter.com\/UzvsiHPZX8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/planet4589\/status\/1892178779746791890?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 19, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>According to the BBC, a piece of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was discovered on February 19 in Komorniki, Poland, where Adam Borucki found a large piece of the rocket measuring approximately 1.5 x 1 m (5 x 3.3 feet) behind his property. The exact time of discovery is unclear, though Polish police were notified around 9:20 a.m. local time (08:20 UTC), according to the Pozna\u0144 Police.<\/p>\n<p>He reported that some electrical items and a concrete block stored in his warehouse were also damaged. Polish police stated that a similar piece of debris was found in a forest near the village of Wiry.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"\/>\n<p>Falcon 9 rockets are designed to be reusable. Only the first stage, or booster, is intended to return to Earth in a controlled manner, landing on a droneship, at a SpaceX facility, or in the ocean far from inhabited areas.<\/p>\n<p>The second stage, or upper part of the rocket, is responsible for entering orbit and deploying the payloads, which in this case were Starlink satellites. This stage is designed to deorbit and safely burn up in the atmosphere, but this did not occur as intended.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"\/>\n<p>\u201cIt was supposed to re-enter the Earth\u2019s atmosphere in a controlled manner and crash into the Pacific Ocean,\u201d Harvard University astrophysicist Dr. Jonathan McDowell told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut the engine failed. We\u2019ve been tracking it orbiting Earth for the past few weeks and anticipated an uncontrolled re-entry today, which is what people saw burning in the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The debris traveled at approximately 27 360 km\/h (17 000 mph), passing over England and parts of Scandinavia before impacting Poland.<\/p>\n<p>References:<\/p>\n<p><sup>1<\/sup> POLSA announcement regarding the uncontrolled entry of a launch vehicle stage into the atmosphere \u2013 POLSA \u2013 Februaruy 19, 2024 <\/p>\n<p><sup>2<\/sup>SpaceX rocket debris crashes into Poland \u2013 BBC \u2013 February 19, 2025<\/p>\n<p><!-- MOLONGUI AUTHORSHIP PLUGIN 5.0.14 --><br \/>\n<!-- https:\/\/www.molongui.com\/wordpress-plugin-post-authors --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/watchers.news\/2025\/02\/22\/falcon-9-debris-lights-up-european-skies-before-crashing-into-poland\/?rand=772151\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket from the Starlink Group 11-4 mission failed to deorbit as planned on February 2, re-entering the atmosphere on February 19. It was&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":793816,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-793815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genaero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=793815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/793816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=793815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=793815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=793815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}