European satellite will fall to Earth today in landmark 'assisted reentry'

A European satellite will make spaceflight history today (July 28), if all goes according to plan. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Aeolus spacecraft is scheduled to reenter Earth's atmosphere this evening, capping a four-day orbit-lowering campaign that could blaze a new trail for satellite operators. "This is quite unique, what we're doing. You don't find really examples of this in the history of spaceflight," Holger Krag, head of ESA's Space Debris Office, said during a press briefing on July 19. "This is the first time to our knowledge [that] we have done an assisted reentry like this." More

(Source: Space.com - Jul 29)