The oldest human-made object in space is a grapefruit-sized satellite launched in 1958. It went silent in 1964. It will still be circling the Earth long after everyone reading this is gone.
Vanguard 1 weighs about a kilogram and a half. It stopped transmitting six decades ago, which makes it, technically, the oldest piece of space junk in existence. Because it sits in a high, slow-decaying orbit, estimates give it a remaining lifetime measured in centuries.
- Object: Vanguard 1
- Launched: March 17, 1958
- Mass: about 1.46 kg
- Status: dead since 1964, still in orbit
- Expected lifetime: centuries
Up there means forever
Vanguard 1 is a sixty-year reminder that, in the higher orbits, dead is not the same as gone.
What we launch, we keep, more or less permanently, unless something goes up and brings it back down. Building that something for objects that cannot deorbit themselves is the whole premise of South Star PROX-M18, our Rendezvous, Proximity Operations, Docking and Undocking unit in development. It has not flown. It is the answer we are working toward.
Vanguard 1 will likely outlast the company trying to clean up after it. We are fine with that. Somebody has to start.
See South Star PROX-M18 →Sources: Vanguard 1 · NASA