Soviet satellite to fall to Earth
by IANS
Moscow: Meteor-1, the Soviet Union's first fully operational weather satellite, will Monday night re-enter the Earth's atmosphere after more than four decades in orbit, the web site of the US Strategic Command said.

The Meteor satellite series was developed in the Soviet Union during the sixties. On March 26, 1969, a Vostok rocket launched Meteor-1, the very first version of the Soviet Meteor satellite network, into orbit. The satellite terminated operations in July 1970, according to NASA information.

The spacecraft is expected to begin falling at 3:13 am Moscow time March 27 with debris estimated to fall into the Indian Ocean south of Sri Lanka, the US Strategic Command said.

Weighing between 1,200 and 1,400 kg, the spacecraft was originally placed in orbit at an altitude of 650 km, the Space Safety magazine said. Two solar panels were automatically oriented toward the sun to provide the spacecraft with the maximum amount of solar power....more    
11:59 AM, Mar 27, 2012

Astronauts rush to safety as space junk whizz by
by IANS
Washington: Six International Space Station (ISS) astronauts rushed to safety as a piece of a Russian satellite whizzed by. The astronauts orbiting 320 km above the planet were stirred from their slumber Saturday to jump into emergency escape pods. They were told by the ground control to scramble into two docked Soyuz spacecrafts in case a piece of a wrecked Russian satellite should smash into the ISS. The emergency was...  
11:13 AM, Mar 25, 2012

US, Russian satellites collide in space
by IANS
A NASA official says this is the first such incident in space. ...  
12:12 PM, Feb 12, 2009