With one last task to carry out, a space station Cygnus cargo ship loaded with trash and no-longer-needed equipment fell back to Earth Wednesday, hitting the discernible atmosphere 60 miles or so above the Pacific Ocean at nearly 5 miles per second.
NASA has switched off research instruments aboard the long-lived Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, preparing the satellite for a destructive re-entry as soon as June and ending its 17-year run observing tropical cyclones from orbit.
A camera packed inside Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle failed to transmit images from inside the disposable supply ship as it plunged through Earth’s atmosphere Feb. 15 and broke apart over the South Pacific Ocean, the European Space Agency said Friday.