Indian-French Megha-Tropiques-1 satellite to crash after a decade of service.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is scheduled to terminate its Megha-Tropiques-1 (MT1) mission on Tuesday by intentionally crashing the satellite into Earth's atmosphere. The mission, which was launched into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in 2011 as a collaborative effort between ISRO and the French space agency, CNES, has been in service for over a decade, delivering critical data on tropical weather and climate patterns.
Originally planned for a three-year mission, MT1's life was extended due to its continued provision of valuable data, supporting regional and global climate models until 2021. The spacecraft, named after the Sanskrit word for "cloud" and the French word for "tropics," was constructed by ISRO using the IRS bus technology from previous Indian satellites and featured four instruments for studying the Earth's atmosphere.
The tropical belt of the Earth, where MT1 has been focused, is responsible for transporting the Sun's excess energy to other regions through the motion of the atmosphere and oceans. This energy budget can significantly affect the entire planet, making it critical for scientists to study.
ISRO has decided to crash MT1 as per the guidelines of the United Nations Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (UNIADC), which mandates that satellites be deorbited at the end of their mission life. UNIADC's guidelines stipulate that the satellite should be deorbited through controlled re-entry into a safe impact zone, or by bringing it to an orbit where the orbital lifetime is less than 25 years.
If left in its current orbit, the 1,000 kg MT1, with approximately 125 kg of onboard fuel, would continue to decay for more than 100 years. This could pose risks for accidental break-up, making it critical for ISRO to de-orbit the satellite.
ISRO has been conducting orbit maneuvers since August 2022 to progressively lower MT1's orbit. The final two orbit maneuvers will set it on a course to re-enter Earth's atmosphere and burn up. The crash is scheduled to occur between 4:30-7:30 pm on Tuesday, in an uninhabited area of the Pacific Ocean that ISRO has designated as a targeted re-entry zone.
The final de-boost strategy for MT1's controlled re-entry was designed after considering various constraints, including the visibility of the re-entry trace over ground stations, ground impact within the targeted zone, and the maximum deliverable thrust and maximum firing duration of the thrusters.
ISRO's decision to terminate the mission may seem like a loss, but it was necessary to avoid any potential risks and comply with UNIADC's guidelines. Nonetheless, the Megha-Tropiques-1 satellite has served its purpose, delivering critical data to support climate research for over a decade.
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