What actually happens to a spacecraft during its fiery last moments? Here's why ESA wants to find out

An illustration of a cube-shaped satellite burning and breaking apart into fragments as it falls onto Earth.

What actually happens to a spacecraft during its fiery last moments? That's the key question for the European Space Agency's (ESA) Destructive Reentry Assessment Container Object (Draco) mission.

ESA has greenlit the program that will create a highly complex reentry of a spacecraft specifically built to dive into Earth's atmosphere while loaded with a variety of sensors.