Europe’s space freighter was destroyed on Monday in a controlled operation over the South Pacific after a maiden operation to resupply the orbiting International Space Station (ISS), mission officials said.
The Jules Verne, as the first Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) was named, was sent plummeting to Earth, entering the atmosphere at an altitude of 120 kilometers (75 miles).
At mission control in Toulouse, southwestern France, engineers held up signs emblazoned with the words “Bye Bye Jules” as the 1.3-billion-euro (1.885-billion-dollar) craft expired.
The European Space Agency (ESA) had earmarked a splashdown zone for potential debris in a remote zone east of New Zealand, west of Chile and south of the Easter Islands.
It had asked national and international bodies to tell ships and aircraft to avoid the area during the re-entry phase.
Around a hundred parts of the 13.5-tonne ATV could survive the fiery heat and stress of re-entry and splash down in the area, the agency said last week.