{"id":102312,"date":"2020-02-13T12:07:49","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T20:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/the-esa-is-about-to-turn-one-of-its-spacecraft-into-a-fireball"},"modified":"2020-02-13T12:07:49","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T20:07:49","slug":"the-esa-is-about-to-turn-one-of-its-spacecraft-into-a-fireball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/the-esa-is-about-to-turn-one-of-its-spacecraft-into-a-fireball","title":{"rendered":"The ESA is about to turn one of its spacecraft into a fireball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/the-esa-is-about-to-turn-one-of-its-spacecraft-into-a-fireball2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Next week, the European Space Agency is going to jettison a cubesat called Qarman from the International Space Station and watch it burst into a fireball as it reenters Earth\u2019s atmosphere\u2014all on purpose.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s the mission: <\/strong>Qarman (short for \u201cQubeSat for Aerothermodynamic Research and Measurements on Ablation\u201d) is a shoebox-sized experiment meant to help researchers better understand the physics at play when objects plummet into the planet\u2019s atmosphere and burn up. Qarman was brought up to the ISS in December during a cargo resupply mission. On February 17, it will be cast back out into space and begin slowly drifting toward Earth before entering the atmosphere and burning up in about six months.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tell me more: <\/strong>Qarman has four solar-cell-covered panels that are designed to increase atmospheric drag and hasten reentry. Its nose is made from a special kind of cork that\u2019s typically used in thermal protection systems on spacecraft. Ground testing shows that when the cork heats up, it chars and flakes away a bit at a time. The Qarman team is interested in learning how this process works during reentry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Next week, the European Space Agency is going to jettison a cubesat called Qarman from the International Space Station and watch it burst into a fireball as it reenters Earth\u2019s atmosphere\u2014all on purpose. What\u2019s the mission: Qarman (short for \u201cQubeSat for Aerothermodynamic Research and Measurements on Ablation\u201d) is a shoebox-sized experiment meant to help researchers [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[219,1633,8,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physics","category-solar-power","category-space","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}