NASA's first-ever OGO satellite to return to Earth on August 29

OGO-1 (Orbiting Geophysics Observatory 1) craft, which happens to be first in series of six OGOs, is all set to make its way back to Earth after 56 years. craft had been set up at NASA’s Goddard Flight Center in order to carry out geophysical experiments and study magnetosphere of our planet. It had a successful launch in September 1964 and examined interactions between Sun and planet Earth, even though it was faced with some technical challenges at time.

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When will OGO-1 return to Earth?

NASA predicts that OGO-1 craft will re-enter our atmosphere on August 29 at around 5:10 PM EDT.

"OGO-1 is predicted to re-enter on one of its next three perigees, points in craft's orbit closest to our plant, and current estimates have OGO-1 re-entering Earth's atmosphere on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020, at about 5:10 p.m. EDT [2110 GMT], over South Pacific approximately halfway between Tahiti and Cook Islands.”

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OGO-1 will be tracked with help of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations projects as it returns to Earth. ncy has also stated that OGO-1 will be entering our atmosphere today and also confirmed that it won’t have any kind of a negative impact on Earth r will it harm people. It furr explained that occurrence is, in fact, rmal.

Earlier this week, University of Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey team was able to shoot a few pictures of OGO-1 as it was approaching Earth. survey was part of  asteroid survey operations funded by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. 

Im: Catalina Sky Survey/University of Arizona/NASA

OGO-1 was able to collect necessary data over next four years since its launch, however, mission had to be called off in 1971 after it was longer able to gar required data. And while it was t operational, it had been placed in a standby mode in orbit ever since.

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OGO-1 will be last in series to return to Earth

It is worth ting that OGO-1 will be last craft in its series to return to Earth as all of or craft which were all launched through late ‘90s have already decayed long ago before coming back to Earth.

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Im credits: NASA