Originally Posted by
Ewan Whosearmy
RETDPI
I believe that this satellite was always going to come back down to earth as it never fully left the earth's gravitational pull (IIRC).
You had no help with that sentence then!
All satellites re-enter eventually, even the ones at over 20,000 mile altitudes. Earths gravitational influence extends to something like 7x the distance to the Moon. The satellite in question is currently at around 160 miles altitude (far lower than any 'enemy' satellites that one would like to destroy), and its orbit is decaying at about 0.5+ miles/day, and that figure is constantly increasing as it meets more of our atmosphere. If the satellite is hit at 130 miles altitude, most of the debris will re-enter after a few orbits. It could demonstrate the ability to hit small high-speed objects in LEO.
