The International Space Station or ISS is probably the largest artificial satellite of the earth right now. There are plans to have the ISS crash in to the Pacific ocean soon. Many people are worried about the big satellite’s re entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Do they have cause to?

Not if you go by historic data on falling satellites. The Skylab re entered the atmosphere over the South West Australian region on July 11, 1979. It was a 79 metric ton weighing satellite which had an uncontrolled re entry and managed not to kill or injure anyone when it fell burning to Earth.

Salyut 7 was a Russian satellite which re entered the atmosphere on February 7, 1991. The entry point into the atmosphere was over Capitán Bermúdez, Argentina. It weighed 40 metric tons and yes the residents in a small town in Argentina did get some shower of debris. But the large satellite was an uncontrolled re entry which again did not represent a danger to human life.

The Russian Mir satellite was the first of the controlled re entries of a satellite in to the Earth’s atmosphere. This science project is interesting as despite wanting to save the 120 metric ton satellite it broke down into fragments over the Pacific Ocean. It re entered the atmosphere over Fiji in the South Pacific Ocean on March 23, 2001.