Most re-entries result in the vehicle being destroyed by frictional heating as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere. Some fragments may get through and hit the Earth's surface - hence the system of TIP messages to warn of the event. Only a space vehicle fitted with a heat shield will get through the atmosphere for a landing.

NOTE - Names used here are as used by Space-Track rather than the more-descriptive ones in the Orbital Focus tables.

Information comes from Space-Track. Most entries are from the 60-day decay prediction messages that are updated each week on Thursday at about 01:00 UTC. If the re-entry date has already passed then you might find the object is also in the actual re-entry list further down the page.

Below are re-entries expected over the next few weeks. The table includes only natural re-entries of satellites and rocket bodies. It excludes debris items and planned events like a Soyuz or a Dragon spacecraft returning from the ISS.

Publication of TIP messages is not a matter of routine and they are not issued for all re-entries. They are more up to date and more precise than entries in the table and take precedence over them.

Sometimes there may be a delay between the final TIP message and the re-entry being formally logged in Space-Track's Catalogue so a Message here may relate to a re-entry that has not yet moved from the 'Anticipated' list to the 'Recent' list.

This table is extracted from Space-Track's Catalogue and lists major re-entries that occurred in the last 30 days, whether natural or deliberate. The list is updated every few hours.

Close to re-entry time for many items, SpaceTrack issues TIP Messages with a more-precise warning of the event. The meaning of the TIP acronym is 'Tracking and Impact Prediction'.

The message includes an estimated latitude and longitude for when the object will go through a height of 10 kilometres (definition - Space-Track) above the ground based on the estimated time. It is a rough indication of the start point of the ellipse within which debris might fall given that horizontal velocity will have reduced to near-zero because of air resistance. In most cases, it is meaningless in practical terms because of length of the Window included in the Message covers a long track across the Earth's surface.

TIP Messages are often a source of confusion as people take the predicted time literally and ignore the error margin (Window) that is also part of the message. In 2011 RIA-Novosti used a TIP Message, issued several weeks in advance, to pinpoint a village in North Africa, doggedly insisting that it would feel the full force of of Phobos-Grunt’s re-entry. SpaceTrack's Window was ±2 days, representing over one million kilometres of ground track and a large proportion of the Earth's surface between 52° North and 52° South.