The reentry of Starlink-1541 over the northern Netherlands on 24 July 2026

 

click map to enlarge

On 24 July 2026 near 20:26 UTC (22:26 CEST), a defunct Starlink satellite, Starlink-1541, reentered over the North Sea, northern Netherlands and Germany. 

I observed the reentry myself (along with many, many other people). I was on a sailing holliday onboard the historic sailing vessel 'De Onderneming' at that time. We had sailed from Medemblik to Oudeschild on the island of Texel that day, and were sitting on deck in the harbour of Oudeschild (53.03898 N, 4.85058 E) during twilight, when Ide, the deck-hand who was facing west, suddenly said "What is that?!".

As I turned my head in the direction she was pointing into, I saw a bright fast moving object rising from the west in the twilight sky, leaving a trail in its wake. It initially was "blinking" in a semi-regular fashion, which put me on the wrong foot for a few seconds, thinking: "aircraft?". But then, as it rose higher in the sky and passed through the zenith, fragmentation became obvious, and I realised it was a space debris reentry. It continued fragmenting while moving to the eastern horizon. It left a vapour trail that lingered for more than 10 minutes.

I did not have my phone directly at hand, as it was charging in the cabin inside our ship. So I do not have imagery of the reentry itself, but did shoot this image of the lingering vapour trail:

lingering vapour trail. Click image to enlarge

This lingering vapour trail consists of amongst others fine aluminium and carbon particles

A nice collection of photographs and video of the event was gathered by the IMO here, and in this NOS news item.

Of course, my next question was: "what object was this?". As I was on holliday, I did not have my laptop with software with me, only my phone. Logging into Space-Track, a TIP message (22:51 UTC ± 2 hr) with a difference of (at that time) about two hours for Starlink-1541 (2020-055AB) seemed to indicate that satellite as a potential candidate, but with only my phone at hand I had no means to check whether the time of the event matched a pass over the Netherlands. Luckily, Joseph Remis on twitter quickly made the connection and established Starlink-1541 as the identity of this reentering object. 

Several hours later, the final post-reentry TIP issued by CSpOC appeared and was a clear match: 24 July 2026 20:26 ± 1m UTC near 52.7 N, 9.6 E (as mentioned before on this blog, Jonathan McDowell and I believe that these very accurate ±1m TIP's are based on US DoD satellite observations of the reentry fireball). As Dutch News reports at that time where still identifying the event as a 'meteor', I had a post-midnight whatsapp interview with a journalist of the National Broadcaster NOS about the real character of the fireball in order to set the record straight.

After returning home a week later, I used the latest orbital data available from CSpOC to run a reentry model on Starlink-1541 using our Delft University of Technology's Astrodynamics Toolkit (Tudat), in order to try to reconstruct the likely reentry trajectory. I varied the drag area in the model untill it resulted in typical reentry altitudes (< 90 km) over the northern Netherlands around 20:26 UTC. This is the resulting approximate trajectory (meaning: there is some leeway in exact altitudes and times, but in general this trajectory should be close to reality):

trajectory and approximate positions (click map to enlarge)

trajectory and approximate atmospheric altitudes (click map to enlarge)

As can be seen, at the harbour of Oudeschild on Texel (one of Dutch Wadden islands) we were almost directly underneath the path of the reentry. Indeed, we saw it pass almost through the zenith, in agreement with this sky-track for Oudeschild harbour resulting from the Tudat reentry reconstruction:

reconstructed sky trajectory for Oudeschild (click map to enlarge)

Starlink-1541 (2020-055AB) was launched from Cape Canaveral on 7 August 2020 on a Falcon 9, with 60 other Starlinks and two additional satellites. On 8 February 2026, after 4.5 years of service, it lowered its orbit in preparation for deorbit. On 24 July 2026, it met its end over the Dutch Wadden Sea.

Starlink-1541 orbital history (click diagram to enlarge)

This was my first ever reentry observation (I tried several times when pre-reentry forecasts suggested an object might reenter over the Netherlands, but in vain): something that was high on my wishlist and can now be struck off. I was lucky to see it. Initially, I was to go on holliday on the Scottish west coast, but the sailing vessel in question got a damaged motor, so that holliday was cancelled. I then went on a shorter alternative sailing holliday on the Dutch Wadden Sea with 'De Onderneming'. This brought me right under the reentry path! We were also lucky to be outside on deck when it happened. If only I would have had my phone in my pocket rather than charging inside the ship....