Feeling the Heat!
Air drag and, sometimes, gravitational effects cause satellites to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. Occasionally, re-entry is caused by a deliberate decision of a satellite owner to fire a retro-rocket and bring some part of a space vehicle back to Earth.
Most re-entries result in the vehicle being destroyed by frictional heating as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere. Some fragments may get through and hit the Earth's surface - hence the system of TIP messages to warn of the event. Only a space vehicle fitted with a heat shield will get through the atmosphere for a landing.
NOTE - Names used here are as used by Space-Track rather than the more-descriptive ones in the Orbital Focus tables.
Anticipated Re-entries
Information comes from Space-Track. Most entries are from the 60-day decay prediction messages. If the re-entry date has already passed then you might find the object is also in the actual re-entry list further down the page.
Below are re-entries expected over the next few weeks. The table includes only natural re-entries of satellites and rocket bodies. It excludes debris items and planned events like a Soyuz, Shenzhou or Dragon spacecraft returning from space station duties.
Table created: 2025 May 19, 06:47 UTC
| Cat No |
Designation |
Name
(SpaceTrack) |
Predicted
Date UTC |
Prediction
Issued UTC |
Recent TIP Messages
Publication of TIP messages is not a matter of routine and they are not issued for all re-entries. They are more up to date and more precise than entries in the table and take precedence over them.
Readers unfamiliar with how to interpret TIP messages are recommended to read the Note at the bottom of the page.
Sometimes there may be a delay between the final TIP message and the re-entry being formally logged in Space-Track's Catalogue so a Message here may relate to a re-entry that has not yet moved from the 'Anticipated' list to the 'Recent' list.
Here is a list of TIP messages where the Window is less than about one quarter orbit. Even then it represents as much as +/-9000 km.
Table created: 2025 May 19, 06:47 UTC
Cat No &
Designation |
Name
(Space-Track) |
Terminal
Date & Time UTC |
Lat, Long & Heading
(10 km altitude) |
TIP Message
Issued UTC |
Recent Re-entries
This table is extracted from Space-Track's Catalogue and lists major re-entries that occurred in the last 30 days, whether natural or deliberate. Sometimes the date shown indicates when the object was first noticed as "missing from orbit", re-entry may have occurred at least one day earlier.
Table created: 2025 May 19, 06:47 UTC
| Cat No |
Designation |
Name (SpaceTrack) |
Date UTC
|
| | | | 1970 Jan 1 |
Note on TIP Messages
Close to re-entry time for many objects, SpaceTrack issues TIP Messages with a more-precise warning of the event. The meaning of the TIP acronym is 'Tracking and Impact Prediction'.
The message includes an estimated latitude and longitude for when the object will go through a height of 10 kilometres (definition - Space-Track) above the ground based on the estimated time. It is a rough indication of the start point of the ellipse within which debris might fall given that horizontal velocity will have reduced to near-zero because of air resistance. In most cases, the location is meaningless in practical terms because the Window included in the Message covers a long track across the Earth's surface.
TIP Messages are often a source of confusion as people take the predicted time literally and ignore the error margin (Window) that is also part of the message. In 2011 RIA-Novosti used a TIP Message, issued several weeks in advance, to pinpoint a village in North Africa, doggedly insisting that it would feel the full force of of Phobos-Grunt’s re-entry. SpaceTrack's Window was ±2 days, representing over one million kilometres of ground track and a large proportion of the Earth's surface between 52° North and 52° South.
Page information updated as available | 
