News that a satellite the size of a double-decker bus is about to crash to earth shouldn’t be of great concern – by the time it has broken up in the atmosphere only fragments are likely to reach the surface.
But the fragments could land anywhere and in the unlikely event of a piece striking a house in the UK, home insurance would cover the damage, according to AA Insurance.
“Part of a falling satellite could potentially cause a lot of damage, given that it may be travelling at up to 4.6 miles (7.5km) per second* and will be white-hot,” says Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance.
“Although so far as I am aware no-one in the UK has ever claimed for damage from falling space junk, impact from parts of aircraft or chunks of ice that have formed on an aircraft does occasionally happen. The cost of damage would be met from the ‘impact damage’ section of a typical home buildings insurance policy and if your car was hit, that would be covered by your comprehensive policy too.”
However, under the Space Liability Convention of 1976, the state that launches a space vehicle is responsible for any damage it causes but damage from space debris is so rare that the treaty has never been invoked. “In theory, this means that if a bit of the falling satellite crashed on the UK, the cost of damage could be claimed from NASA,” Mr Douglas explains.
Scientists expect the satellite to break up into about 26 pieces as it descends to Earth. Weighing about six tonnes, the Upper Earth Research Satellite was launched in 1991 to measure the chemical composition of the upper atmosphere. It completed its work in 2005 and has been gradually descending ever since.
Source : The AA
