Skynet 1A: the mystery of the satellite that moved in Earth’s orbit in the 70s and no one knows who did it or why
- Author, Jonathan Amos
- Author’s title, Science Correspondent, BBC
Someone moved the UK’s oldest satellite and there appears to be no record of who, when or why they did it.
Launched in 1969, just months after humans first set foot on the Moon, Skynet 1A was placed over the east coast of Africa to transmit communications to British forces.
When the ship stopped working a few years later, gravity might have been expected to pull it even further east over the Indian Ocean.
But today, interestingly, Skynet 1A is actually half a planet away, at a position 36,000 km above the American continent.
According to orbital mechanics, it is unlikely that the half-ton military ship simply drifted toward its current location..
Almost certainly, it was ordered to fire its thrusters in the mid-1970s to direct it westward. The question is who was it and with what authority and purpose.
What is intriguing is that key information about a once-vital national security asset could evaporate.
But, fascination aside, we could also rightly ask why it is still important.
After all, we are talking of space junk discarded 50 years ago.
“It’s still relevant because whoever moved Skynet 1A did us few favors,” says space consultant Dr Stuart Eve.
“It’s now in what we call ‘a gravity well’ at 105 degrees west longitude, wandering back and forth like a marble at the bottom of a bowl. And unfortunately this brings it regularly close to traffic from other satellites.
“As it is dead, the risk is that it could collide with something, and since it is ‘our’ satellite, we are still responsible for it,” he explains.
Dr Eves has consulted old satellite catalogs and national archives and spoken to satellite experts around the world, but has been unable to find any clues about the end-of-life behavior of Britain’s oldest spacecraft.
It can be tempting to resort to a conspiracy theory or two, especially since it’s hard to hear the name “Skynet” and not think of the film franchise’s malevolent, self-aware artificial intelligence (AI) system. Terminator.
But there is no connection beyond the name and, in any case, real life is always more prosaic.
What we do know is that Skynet 1A was manufactured in the United States by the now defunct aerospace company Philco Ford and launched into space by a US Air Force (USAF) Delta rocket.
“The first Skynet satellite revolutionized the UK’s telecommunications capability, allowing London to communicate securely with British forces as far away as Singapore,” commented Dr Aaron Bateman in a recent article on the history of the Skynet programme, which is now It is in its fifth generation.
“However, from a technological point of view, Skynet 1A was more American than British, as the United States built and launched it“.
This view is confirmed by Graham Davison, who flew Skynet 1A in the early 1970s from its UK operations center at RAF Oakhanger base in Hampshire, England.
“The Americans originally controlled the satellite in orbit. They tested all our software against theirs, before finally handing control over to the RAF,” the long-retired engineer told me.
“In essence there was dual control, but I’m afraid I don’t remember when or why Skynet 1A may have been returned to the Americans, which seems likely,” said Davison, now in his 80s.
Image source, Astroscale
Rachel Hill, a PhD student at University College London, has also been researching the National Archives.
Your readings They have brought it to a very reasonable possibility.
“A Skynet team from Oakhanger could have gone to the USAF satellite facility at Sunnyvale (colloquially known as the Blue Cube) and could have operated the Skynet during ‘Oakout,’ when the Oakhanger base was down for essential maintenance and control was temporarily transferred to the US. Perhaps the transfer could have occurred then?” Hill speculated.
Official, though incomplete, records of the status of Skynet 1A suggest that final command was left in the hands of the Americans when Oakhanger lost sight of the satellite in June 1977.
But, regardless of how Skynet 1A was moved to its current position, it was ultimately allowed to die in an uncomfortable location when in reality it should have been placed in an “orbital graveyard.”
This refers to an even higher region in the sky where old space junk is at no risk of colliding with active telecommunications satellites.
The cemetery is now a common practice, but in the 1970s no one thought much about spatial sustainability.
Image source, Northrop Grumman
Since then, attitudes have changed because space is becoming congested.
At 105 degrees west longitude, an active satellite can see a piece of debris approaching within 50 km of its position up to four times a day.
They may not seem to be close to each other, but at the speeds at which these inactive objects are moving, they are starting to get too close.
The Ministry of Defense claimed that Skynet 1A was being constantly monitored by the UK’s National Space Operations Centre.
Other satellite operators are informed if a particularly close conjunction is likely, in case they need to make evasive maneuvers.
Ultimately, however, The British government may have to think about moving the old satellite to a safer location.
Technologies are being developed to trap debris left in space.
The UK Space Agency is already funding efforts to do so at lower altitudes, and the Americans and Chinese have shown that it is possible to catch older hardware even in the kind of high orbit occupied by Skynet 1A.
“Pieces of space junk are like time bombs,” observed Moriba Jah, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.
“We have to avoid what I call superspreading events. When these things explode or something collides with them, thousands of pieces of debris are generated that then become a hazard to something that is more important to us.”
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