A burning Russian satellite was captured on video on October 21 over North America7. The video of the incident was posted on YouTube by the American Meteor Society.
According to Space.com, the fireball in the night sky was actually a new reconnaissance spacecraft Cosmos-2551 of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The spacecraft was launched on September 9 from Plesetsk cosmodrome on board the light Soyuz-2.1v rocket.
The satellite burned in the atmosphere completely and did not pose any threat to anyone as it was crashing down.
According to LiveJournal's bmpd blog, the Kosmos-2551, which belongs to the Razbeg (Runaway) series did not perform any manoeuvres, nor did it send any radio signals to earth. Apparently, the spacecraft did not operate after it was put into orbit. However, representatives for the Russian Ministry of Defence said after the launch that onboard systems of the spacecraft were functioning normally.
Dmitry Rogozin, the chief of Roscosmos, commented on the incident with the crash of the Cosmos-2551 satellite.
“You need to first figure out what has fallen down there, and then judge our work. All Roscosmos spacecraft are operating normally,” the head of the state corporation wrote on Facebook.
In April, TASS news agency reported with reference to the North American Aerospace Defence Command, that the Russian military satellite Cosmos-2525 had lost near-Earth orbit and burned in the atmosphere.