there are a number of satellites orbiting in space.Most of them's life span got over.. I want to know what will happen to a satellite, once its life span is over
2007-04-24 03:03:56 · 9 answers · asked by santhya 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Sputnik was the first human-launched satellite. It re-entered the Earth's atmosphere after orbiting for a couple of months.
If the Earth had no atmosphere, satellites would orbit much longer; usually, their orbits 'decay' because of atmospheric friction - even though satellites orbit at 100, 200, 300 miles high, there is still some particles of atmosphere at those altitudes (The closer to the Earth, the more particles there are.)
Skylab was estimated to have been high enough to orbit for 15 years after it was first launched; but solar activity expanded Earth's atmosphere, and created more drag on the space station than was first anticipated - and it crashed back to Earth in 1979.
The satellites that orbit even higher - the Geo-synchronous satellites at 23,600 miles - will probably not be in danger of crashing back to Earth for many hundreds of thousands of years - but, eventually, it *will* happen. Even at that altitude, atmospheric particles linger, and solar activity can also affect spacecraft by applying forces to them.
2007-04-24 08:54:39 · answer #1 · answered by quantumclaustrophobe 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It's lifespan is really the time in can send meaningful data back to Earth. So after that, it's just a piece of metal flying through space forever, or if it is in orbit, when that orbit decays, it will burn up in the atmosphere.
The first satellite around the Earth was Sputnik 1, launched in 1957.
2007-04-24 03:09:30 · answer #2 · answered by ZeroCarbonImpact 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Officially, Sputnik 1 reentered Earth's atmosphere and burned up on January 4, 1958. There is some controversy surrounding structural components of the satellite and its booster that may have come to rest near Los Angeles between December '57 and January '58.
2007-04-24 03:27:55 · answer #3 · answered by JLynes 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The orbit decays and it falls back to Earth.
2007-04-24 03:49:06 · answer #4 · answered by Matthew P 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Gravity man, old mother earth takes it back. It gets sucked back into the atmosphere and either gets burned up on reentry or hits the ground were ever it lands.
2007-04-24 03:08:44 · answer #5 · answered by landersonjr1958 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It will either decay and reenter the atmosphere and burn up or it can be redirected to burn up. Unfortunately there is a lot of dead junk floating around the earth.
2007-04-24 03:07:34 · answer #6 · answered by Gene 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They fall out of orbit and burn or break up in the atmosphere.
2007-04-24 03:07:07 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
They just fall to earth and burn up.
2007-04-24 09:41:19 · answer #8 · answered by Mr. Smith 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It simply disappeared
2007-04-24 06:38:05 · answer #9 · answered by Radhakrishna( prrkrishna) 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋