Around 6.5 ton Research Satellite was carried into orbit by NASA during a space shuttle mission in 1991. It functioned for 14 years, collecting measurements of ozone and other chemicals in the atmosphere.
Satellite has completed its mission in 2005, it has been slowly losing altitude. NASA has reported on its website that the 35-foot-long, 15-foot diameter satellite body is expected to plummet into the atmosphere, NASA reported on its website.
While most of the spacecraft will be burned, scientists expect up to 26 pieces, with a combined mass of about 500kg to continue to exist the fiery re-entry and fall down somewhere on Earth.
The satellite's orbit covers almost all of earth, from as far north as northern Canada to the southern part of South America.
NASA said the chance a piece of satellite debris will strike a person is about one in 3,200. The debris will mostly likely fall into an ocean or land in an uninhabited region of Earth.
