Methods and Procedures for Re-Entry Predictions at ESA

Since more than 30 years ESA has been performing re-entry predictions for potentially hazardous space objects that may pose a risk either due to large casualty cross-sections of parts surviving to ground impact, or due to hazardous substances that could be released into the atmosphere or on the Earth surface. Some of the more prominent objects that belonged to this category were Cosmos-954, Skylab, Cosmos-1402 and Salyut-7. To predict the re-entry time windows of such objects and the related ground swaths at risk ESA uses a comprehensive suite of software tools that cover all major facets of this complex, multi-disciplinary problem. In the following paper software implementations of mathematical algorithms will be outlined that describe physical phenomena of re-entry events and yield a spectrum of resulting data products.