Aeolus was in orbit around Earth for four years, eleven months and six days. For three hours at the very end, it was space debris. This new animation is made from the last eight images ever taken of ESA's wind-profiling mission, showing it beginning to tumble as it was buffeted by Earth’s atmosphere, during its very brief ‘junk’ phase.
Aeolus became debris after the last command was executed at17:43 CEST on 28 July 2023, after which the Flight Control Team could no longer speak to, hear from, or influence the satellite. After months of preparation and a week of intense and critical operations, the team had done everything they could, the satellite was passivated – turned off – and ‘handed over’ to ESA’s Space Debris Office which tracked its final descent.
Looking at the ground track, the path on Earth that Aeolus was likely to fly over, it was clear that the Tracking and Imaging Radar (TIRA) at Fraunhofer FHR in Germany would get a good view. Using their 34-m antenna, TIRA tracked Aeolus at around 18:20 CEST for about four minutes.
The color in these final images represents the radar echo intensity and not temperature.