The long space odyssey of a NASA geophysics satellite is nearing an end.
De Orbiting Geophysics Observatory 1 spaceship, as OGO-1, launched in September 1964 to study the Earth’s magnetic environment and how our planet interacts with the sun. The satellite collected data until 1969, was officially disbanded in 1971 and has since been quietly zooming around the earth on a highly elliptical orbit of two days.
But the days of OGO-1 are numbered. New observations show that The gravity of the earth has finally reached the 1,070-lb mark. (487 kilograms) satellite, which is expected to die a fiery death this weekend in the atmosphere of our planet.
“OGO-1 is expected to re-enter one of the next three perigees, the points in the orbit of the spacecraft that are closest to our plant, and current treasures have OGO-1 re-enter the atmosphere from Earth on Saturday, August 29, 2020, at approximately 5:10 p.m. EDT [2110 GMT], across the Pacific Ocean about halfway between Tahiti and the Cook Islands, “NASA officials wrote in an update Thursday (August 27).
“The spacecraft will break into the atmosphere and pose no threat to our planet – if anyone is on it – and this is a normal definitive operational occurrence for retired spacecraft,” she added.
The new assessments come thanks to the University of Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) and the University of Hawaii’s Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), both of which independently detected a small object on an apparent trajectory of influence.
Analyzes by CSS researchers, the Center for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the European Space Agency’s NEO Coordination Center show that the object in question is not asteroid but rather OGO-1, NASA officials said.
OGO-1 was the first satellite in the OGO program with six spacecraft, the other members of which were launched in 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1969. These five have all returned to Earth, mostly in 2011, re-entering over various patches of ocean.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
