UARS uncontrolled reentry (September 2011)

On 24 September 2011, NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) — a roughly 6-tonne science spacecraft deployed from the Space Shuttle in 1991 — made an uncontrolled re-entry over the Pacific Ocean. Decommissioned in 2005, UARS had no way to steer its descent.

A very public re-entry Because UARS was large and its splashdown point couldn't be pinned down until the final hours, the event became one of the most heavily covered re-entries of its era. NASA estimated that a number of dense components could survive to the surface, and forecasts tracked a wide swath of the globe before narrowing to the Pacific. No injuries or damage were reported.

Part of a 2011 cluster UARS came down within weeks of Germany's ROSAT, and the pair drove a wave of public interest in how — and where — old satellites come back down, and in the case for designing controlled disposal into future missions.