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From his perch on the International Space Station, a French astronaut saw a long-standing Russian space module shatter to pieces in a shower of fireworks. In addition, he filmed the event on video.
The European Space Agency’s Facebook page shows an accelerated timelapse of the module, called Pirs, meeting its fiery demise on Monday (July 26) under the watchful eye of Thomas Pesquet.
“Atmospheric reentry without a heat shield gives a nice fireball,” Pesquet wrote in the post, which also included a description in French. “You can clearly see smaller pieces of molten metal flying away and adding to the fireworks.”
Video: Watch a spaceship burn in Earth’s atmosphere from the space station
Related: Astronaut watches Russian space station module fall from space in fiery demise (photos)
Astronauts could watch Pirs crash above the clouds for about six minutes, he added, then joked that it might be a good idea to wish the next “shooting star” that you see in the sky, which could be a meteor – or could be orbital garbage is burning. If it is garbage, he continued, “not sure that [the wish] will be granted … but you never know, I would still advise to go ahead. “
Pirs was withdrawn from service after nearly 20 years of work on the space station. It came into orbit on September 14, 2001 after being launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, with a modified Progress spacecraft as the upper stage of its Soyuz-U rocket. Three days later, it docked with the Zvezda service module, becoming the sixth pressurized module of the orbital complex.
The long-standing docking compartment has met with its demise to make way for a new Russian science module called the Nauka. The delayed module – held back for 13 years due to various technical and budgetary issues – temporarily wreaked havoc on Friday, July 30 when a misfire caused Nauka’s temporary but severe tilt to the International Space Station.
NASA officials have repeatedly pointed out that the Expedition 65 crew was never in danger and that the tilt was quickly corrected. “The change that occurred was slow enough to go unnoticed by crew members on board, and all other station systems functioned nominally throughout the event,” the agency told Space.com on Monday 2 August.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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