Picks of the litter

Every year 60 to 80 tons of space junk come hurtling back to Earth. Most of it gets annihilated due to the extremely high temperatures that result from plummeting through our planet’s thick atmosphere. But in the past year, we’ve seen a number of high-profile satellite and rocket launch failures that have scattered space scrap everywhere from Siberia to South America.

Russia’s Phobos-Grunt
Lifted off: Nov. 9, 2011
Crash-landed: Jan. 15, 2012, in the Pacific Ocean near Chile
Cost: 5 billion rubles or about $160 million
Mission: The probe was supposed to land on Phobos (one of Mars’ two moons), collect soil samples and return peacefully to Earth.
What went wrong: The craft encountered engine issues and failed to escape Earth’s orbit. Current Russian space chief, Vladimir Popovkin, has raised eyebrows by alluding to U.S. radars as a possible cause of the failed mission.

Russia’s Meridian communications satellite
Lifted off: Dec. 23, 2011
Crash-landed: Dec. 23, 2011, in a Siberian neighborhood
Cost: 2 billion rubles or about $65 million
Mission: Providing communication between ships and aircraft traveling in the Arctic, as well as expanding a communication network to Russia’s north Siberian and far East regions.
What went wrong: According to a Russian news agency, the rocket failed to reach Earth’s orbit due to undisclosed issues, and pieces of the satellite reportedly landed in a Siberian neighborhood, hitting a house on, wait for it … Cosmonaut Street.

Germany’s Roentgen Satellite (ROSAT)
Lifted off:: June 1, 1990
Crash-landed: Oct. 23, 2011, entering the atmosphere over the Bay of Bengal
Cost: More than $500 million
Mission: Launched in 1990, ROSAT was the first satellite to take an all-sky survey of the universe’s X-ray sources.
What went wrong: Abandoned in 1999 due to irreversible damage, ROSAT spent the next 12 years in Earth’s orbit before plunging back into Earth’s atmosphere at 17,000 mph. Scientists are still trying to figure out where debris from the satellite hit the Earth’s surface.  

NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS)
Lifted off: Sept. 12, 1991
Crash-landed:  Sept. 24, 2011
Cost: $750 million
Mission: Observing the chemical components of the atmosphere, measuring winds and temperatures in the stratosphere and tracking energy input from the sun.
What went wrong: Six years after its 2005 decommissioning, most of the school bus-sized object was incinerated while reentering the atmosphere, but according to NASA, as much as 1,200 pounds of leftovers could have survived, ultimately scattering across a 500-mile range of Earth’s surface. Your chances of getting hit? One in 21 trillion.

NASA’s Glory climate satellite
Lifted off: March 4, 2011
Crash-landed: March 4, 2011
Cost: About $420 million
Mission: Collect data on aerosols, the minuscule particles found in the atmosphere, and ideally illuminate how they affect Earth’s climate.  
What went wrong: Soon after launch the nose cone encasing Glory failed to separate from the Taurus XL rocket. Glory didn’t reach orbit, and the unit came careening back to ground, likely landing in the same vicinity as NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a climate satellite that crashed in Antarctica in 2009.