Someone moved the old military satellite Skynet-1A, launched in 1969 by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence. But the United Kingdom says they did not go.
Context. Skynet-1A was the first British satellite. Although it no longer operates, its function was to establish secure communications between London and British military forces stationed in remote locations, such as Singapore.
At the end of its useful life, Skynet-1A was expected to decay until it entered a gravitational hole at 75 degrees east longitude, over the Indian Ocean. However, that’s not what happened.
Half the planet has moved. A gravitational hole is a specific region of the geostationary orbit where satellites tend to accumulate due to variations in the Earth’s gravitational field.
According to the laws of orbital mechanics, Skynet-1A was supposed to fall into the hole over the Indian Ocean, but it has moved half the planet and is located at 105 degrees west longitude, over the American continent.
The simplest explanation. It is very difficult for the satellite to have reached its current position without human intervention, so the simplest explanation, BBC News reports, is that someone ordered a firing of its thrusters at some point in the 1970s to move it around.
Rachel Hill, a researcher at University College London, suspects the United States. It is possible that the Americans moved it, he says, when the British station was undergoing maintenance, since control of the satellite was then temporarily transferred to American personnel.
Graham Davison, a former Skynet-1A engineer, admits that control of the satellite could be transferred to the United States, but he does not remember specific details.
Why is it a problem? In its unexpected final orbit, Skynet-1A is a danger. The British satellite is not maneuverable and has been inactive for decades, but it regularly approaches satellites that do work.
“Whoever moved Skynet-1A did us no favors,” space law consultant Stuart Eves told the BBC. Under the space agreements, the United Kingdom remains responsible for any collision, although the British Ministry of Defense swears that it had nothing to do with its displacement.
There is another possibility. The UK Ministry of Defense says Skynet-1A is constantly monitored by the UK National Space Operations Centre. However, its movement is so strange that Celestrak director TS Kelso proposes another hypothesis: that the object they are tracking is not really Skynet-1A.
A change of attitude. In the 1970s, no attention was paid to the sustainability of Earth’s orbit, much less to the management of space debris. Today, with space much more congested, space agencies impose responsible practices to deorbit or move inactive satellites to graveyard orbits.
A plethora of startups have also emerged that are developing technologies to capture and deorbit failed satellites, such as Japan’s Astroscale.
Images | MoD, Scott Tilley
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