Derelict Objects: Vanguard 1

[Ty Tan Tu]

Something to think about when you are looking at all the derelict objects in your Kerbal universe - Vanguard 1 and the upper stage rocket used to launch the satellite, are still in orbit. And will be until somewhere around 2200 A.D. Vanguard 1 was launched on March 17, 1958. About a year and a half from now, it will have been in orbit for 60 years. Vanguard 2 and Vanguard 3 are still in orbit too for that matter. In fact two pieces of the upper stage of Vanguard 3 are still in orbit along with the satellite.

NEO (Near Earth Object) J002E3 was at first believed to be an asteroid, but has since been tentatively identified as the S-IVB third stage of the Apollo 12 Saturn V rocket launched in November 1969.

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

It's pretty crazy to think that you could make a museum from all the junk we've got floating in orbit. Most geostationary satellites won't fall back to Earth for thousands of years.

[Sharpy]

This graph is an eye-opener.

It was the fundamental part of answer to my question "can one use a solar sail to prevent orbital decay?" - smart angling/folding the sail technically could serve to accelerate a satellite in orbit, but the break-even altitude where solar pressure overcomes atmospheric drag is 1000km. And at that altitude... you don't need orbit decay counter-measures.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Sharpy

[rcp27]

Thankfully Ed White's glove from Gemini 4 has come down, imagine finding out your million dollar's worth of satellite was destroyed because an astronaut threw a punch at it in 1965.

[Rath]

Knowing early astronauts, he was probably hoping it would hit a sat, cause it's a good bar story.

On October 3, 2016 at 3:03 AM, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

It's pretty crazy to think that you could make a museum from all the junk we've got floating in orbit. Most geostationary satellites won't fall back to Earth for thousands of years.

Hopefully we will.  Probably not.

[tg626]

I used to have a book that cataloged all the objects in orbit (as of 1965 or there abouts).  Along with orbital elements and other data was a column for reentry or predicted decay.  There were many that were in the decades and more in the 100s of years, but at least a few said 1,000,000+ years.

Wish I could remember any of them...

 

(Pretty sure it was an early copy of "The RAE Table of Earth Satellites"

Edited October 4, 2016 by tg626
This forum sucks on mobile...

[Magzimum]

On 2-10-2016 at 9:03 PM, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

It's pretty crazy to think that you could make a museum from all the junk we've got floating in orbit.

Interesting business proposal, that.

[DrLicor]

On 2-10-2016 at 9:03 PM, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

It's pretty crazy to think that you could make a museum from all the junk we've got floating in orbit. Most geostationary satellites won't fall back to Earth for thousands of years.

Museum? We need at least a whole freaking state of america to store all the junk