Some debris from the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) fell into the Barents Sea north of Norway and Russia at around 5 am local time, according to the orbital debris program office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The institute is lowered ICESat orbit in July and formally interesting to prepare the satellite back into Earth.
Survival of this plane will be very useful for understanding the dynamics of ice sheets and sea ice, NASA officials said.
ICESat mission has been to promote science in measuring changes in ice mass of Greenland and Antarctica, sea ice thickness, and height of vegetation canopy height of clouds and aerosols.
"ICESat is very useful for science," said Jay Zwally, ICESat project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.
"This satellite is providing detailed information on how the Earth's polar ice mass changes over global warming and for the determination of government policy."
ICESat data showed thinning of Arctic sea ice very quickly, and shows the level of Greenland ice loss that contributed to the high increase in the sea, Zwally said.
"Thanks to the ICESat we know that the Antarctic ice sheet is not reduced as much as mentioned the current study," says Zwally.
Using ICESat data, scientists can identification lake network under the Antarctic ice sheet.
"ICESat team has done an excellent job ensuring the aircraft is not a threat to other aircraft or potential sources of orbital debris in the future," said Nicholas Johnson, Cief Scientist orbital debris at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Although the ICESat mission has ended, NASA's research related to the polar regions of Earth will continue, officials said the agency.
NASA began to develop the ICESat-2 is planned to be launched in 2015 by including the far more advanced instruments into it
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