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Keyword: skynet1a

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  • Somebody moved UK's oldest satellite, and no-one knows who or why

    11/10/2024 4:04:26 PM PST · by BenLurkin · 26 replies
    BBC ^ | 11/08/2024 | Jonathan Amos
    Someone moved the UK's oldest satellite and there appears to be no record of exactly who, when or why. Launched in 1969, just a few months after humans first set foot on the Moon, Skynet-1A was put high above Africa's east coast to relay communications for British forces. When the spacecraft ceased working a few years later, gravity might have been expected to pull it even further to the east, out over the Indian Ocean. But today, curiously, Skynet-1A is actually half a planet away, in a position 22,369 miles (36,000km) above the Americas. Orbital mechanics mean it's unlikely the...