After orbiting Earth for nine years, the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory was intentionally deorbited in June 2000 after one of its gyroscopes failed. In its condition, the observatory was actually still functional, but if another gyroscope had failed, it would have made deorbiting potentially dangerous. NASA therefore decided that a controlled crash was the safest option. As the spacecraft entered the Earth’s atmosphere, solar panels and antennas disconnected from its body and the rest likely melted. More than 13,000 pounds of debris from the observatory was recovered from the Pacific Ocean southeast of Hawaii.
NASA/AP/File
