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   Hippy Steve (exador23@m.ai6yr.org)'s status on Sunday, 20-Apr-2025 09:47:04 JST Hippy Steve

   This is actually kinda cool.

   World’s Oldest Satellite Has Been in Space for 67 Years. Engineers Want to Bring It Home https://gizmodo.com/worlds-oldest-satellite-has-been-in-space-for-67-years-engineers-want-to-bring-it-home-2000587158

   Vanguard-1 is the second U.S. satellite launched to space. Conceived by the Naval Research Laboratory in 1955, it was designed to test the launch capabilities of a three-stage launch vehicle and the effects of the harsh space environment on a satellite. Today, it remains as the oldest artificial object orbiting Earth. A team of researchers and engineers from Virginia-based consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton have put together a proposal on how to retrieve the satellite from space, bringing it back to Earth to study how its equipment has fared over the years, according to a report by Space.com. The team’s proposal is detailed in a study published in the Aerospace Research Center earlier this year.

   Vanguard-1 went silent in 1964, but tracking data shows its location and orbit. The satellite has persisted for so long due to its location in a highly elliptical orbit, unlike the Soviet Sputniks and the U.S.’s Explorer-1, which fell back to Earth within months or years due to atmospheric drag in low Earth orbit. If it were to be retrieved, Vanguard-1 would be the oldest satellite ever returned to Earth.
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   The technological hurdles overcome on such a project would potentially allow for later space junk cleanup projects. Before we Kessler Syndrome ourselves out of space for millennia.

   • tinydoctor repeated this.
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     Hippy Steve (exador23@m.ai6yr.org)'s status on Sunday, 20-Apr-2025 09:47:04 JST Hippy Steve

     in reply to

     And this is even cooler.

     MEV-1 service spacecraft makes history with first satellite undocking https://newatlas.com/space/mev-1-service-spacecraft-undocking/

     Built & operated by SpaceLogistics LLC, a Northrop Grumman subsidiary, MEV-1 had already made history on Feb 25, 2020 when it docked with the decommissioned Intelsat IS-901 communications satellite in GEO at an altitude of 22,000 miles above the Earth. Paradoxically, there was nothing wrong with the US$250-million IS-901 even after 15 years of service. The only reason it was taken out of service and shunted into a graveyard orbit was that it had run out of the propellant that it needed to keep it in its proper orbit and maintain attitude control.

     Instead of tossing out a perfectly good piece of hardware, Northrop developed the MEV as a life-extension spacecraft that can not only bring defunct satellites back into service, it can also dock with craft that were never designed with a docking mechanism. The MEV-1 managed its docking feat with a special probe that inserts into the main engine nozzle of the target satellite and locks itself in. It then takes over the propulsion and attitude control duties, allowing the satellite to be reactivated and put back on the job.
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     So this spacecraft docked with a satellite never intended to be docked. Provided the orbital control needed for a satellite out of fuel giving it an extra 5 yrs of life. Then moved it to an unused orbit, undocked, & is heading for another satellite to service. this is the way.