Soviet Space Station Breaking Into Pieces as It Falls to Earth

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The 40-ton Salyut-7 Soviet space station plunged through Earth’s atmosphere over Argentina at 17,000 m.p.h. Wednesday night and broke apart, according to the U.S. Space Command.

Debris was expected to hit land, but not any cities or heavily populated areas, officials said.

“We have indications that Salyut entered the Earth’s atmosphere traveling over central Argentina at 44 minutes after the hour (7:44 p.m. PST) at about 17,000 m.p.h.,” said Navy Cmdr. Charles Connor, a space command spokesman. He said the space station was about the size of a railroad freight car.

“We have reason to believe it is breaking into several pieces. We expect the fragments will fall to Earth, which is unusual,” he said. “Usually in satellite breakups they just don’t pass through the atmosphere, but the size of this one and with its shields, we certainly expect it to fall” to Earth.

“Eyeballing a map of the world, it does not look like population centers were at risk,” said Maj. Thomas Niemann, another space command spokesman.