After 25 years adrift in spacethis week An experimental satellite was found that was launched in 1974 and that disappeared from terrestrial sensors in the ’90s.
As reported by the site Gizmodothe Infra-Red Calibration Ballon satellite (S73-7) was part of the United States Air Force Space Test Program. After launch in April 1974, the reconnaissance satellite called KH-9 Hexagonejected the 26-inch-wide (66-centimeter-wide) satellite, propelling it into a 500-mile (800-kilometer) circular orbit.
The craft was supposed to inflate into orbit and serve as a calibration target for remote sensing equipment. But, there was a problem with its deployment and it ended up becoming “another piece of space junk”.
However, This week the satellite was found after not having been tracked for the last 25 years, based on tracking data from the Space Force’s 18th Space Defense Squadron.
The astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysicsexplained to the aforementioned media that “the problem is that it possibly has a very low radar cross section”.
“And maybe what they’re tracking is a dispenser or a piece of the balloon that didn’t deploy properly, so it’s not metal and doesn’t look good on radar.McDowell added.
Ground-based radars and optical sensors perform tracking more than 20 thousand objects in orbit. While there is a global network of sensors that deliver information to an updated catalog of satellites, most objects do not broadcast their identities, so to identify them, sensors must compare them to the satellite’s designated orbit.
“It’s basically like air traffic control. This whole thing is humming and if you’re going to try to fly through it, you want to know where the dangers are.”explained the astrophysicist.
Tracking satellites in geostationary orbit, a circular orbit directly above the equator, can be very challenging since there are no radars that accurately monitor objects at the equator. And if the satellite performs an unexpected maneuver, engineers are forced to search for it in Earth orbit.
Currently, the The US Department of Defense’s Global Space Surveillance Network is tracking more than 27,000 objects in orbitwhich are mostly spent rocket boosters and operational and dead satellites.
