Prospero X-3

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The Prospero X-3 satellite (official designation 05580 / 71093A) is the only satellite to be launched by a British rocket.

X-3 was launched on 28 October 1971 from Launch Area 5B (LA-5B) at Woomera, South Australia on a Black Arrow rocket, making Britain the seventh nation to place a satellite into orbit (after the USSR, USA, France, Australia, Japan and China).

The satellite contains a single experiment to test solar cells. A tape recorder is also on board, which failed on 24 May 1973 after 730 plays.

Radio transmissions from Prospero can still be heard as of 2006^[1] although it had officially been switched off in 1996 when the UK's Defence Research Establishment decommissioned their satellite tracking station at Lasham, Hampshire.

It is in a low Earth orbit with an expected lifetime of about 100 years.