what happen to all those old and useless satellite? just drift around out there??

Answer 1

Yep...until the orbit decays and it enters Earth's atmosphere.

It MIGHT make sense to remove them (to avoid collisions) but that won't happen ($$$) until a disaster occurs with a manned mission being threatened/destroyed...or until enough satellites that ARE working get damaged (and lose the owners MORE $$$)!

Answer 2

Mostly yes. A few low-orbit satellites are in decaying orbits and most of them burn up on re-entry. In a few rare cases bits of satellite survive re-entry and hit the ground, like the Russian Kosmos 954, pieces of which landed in Manitoba, complete with radioactive fuel. And a few satellites are struck by meteors and space debris and break up. So there's quite a lot of junk in orbit around Earth.

Answer 3

---They stay in orbit until gradually air friction slows them down enough that they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn up. Some pieces may make it to the surface. How long that takes depends on the shape of the satellite and what orbit it is in: how high the orbit; how regular the orbit. It could be a thousand years or more, but normally is far less. ---Jim

Answer 4

Indeed they do -until orbital decay and friction cause them to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up- and if the orbit was a geosynchronous track, it may take millions of years before orbit degrades..
NASA and Space Command are currently tracking thousands of objects( mostly dead) in orbits, many of which threaten new launches...and have to be figured into launch times and trajectories to guarantee payload survival...

hope this helps

Answer 5

the orbit will decay and they will burn up on re-entry

Answer 6

They burn up on re entry