A decades-old NASA satellite just died in Earth’s atmosphere

• NASA's OGO-1 satellite completed its deorbit over the weekend, meeting Earth's atmosphere and disintegrating due to the intense friction.
• The satellite was launched in 1964 and spent over a half-century in space.
• The spacecraft was completely destroyed when it entered the atmosphere, and no pieces of it survived to make it to the ground.

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If you've never heard of OGO-1, nobody can really blame you. NASA's launched a lot of satellites over the years and OGO-1 is a true relic of an age gone by. The spacecraft took to the skies way back in late 1964. Incredibly, despite its mission having long since been declared over, the satellite continued to orbit Earth for over half a century. This past weekend, its journey finally came to an end.

As NASA explains, the spacecraft was one of six similar satellites that launched on yearly intervals until 1969. Every single one of those satellites has long since come back down to Earth, burning up in our planet's atmosphere... except for one. The original OGO satellite remained in orbit until August 29th, 2020.

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A decades-old NASA satellite just died in Earth’s atmosphere originally appeared on BGR.com on Tue, 1 Sep 2020 at 20:08:33 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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