Nation IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Satellite Heading to Its Fiery Doom
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
NASA’s tumbling Solar Max satellite plunged toward a fiery doom over the Pacific west of Ecuador. NASA officials in Cape Canaveral, Fla., said any debris that survived this morning’s re-entry likely would fall harmlessly in the Atlantic. The Solar Maximum Mission satellite was launched in 1980 to study the sun. It was repaired by a shuttle mission in 1984, but its orbit has been “decaying”--growing lower--dooming it to burning up in friction from Earth’s atmosphere.
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