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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.