Talk:Vanguard 1

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This satellite is NOT space "junk." Because it is still in a relatively stable orbit, it can be tracked and the measurements continue to provide valuable information on atmospheric density and the geodesy of the Earth.Vanguard50th (talk) 15:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

This article should be merged into Project Vanguard. --Alexwcovington 08:36, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Orbits now ~204,400 as of June 15, 2006

This is a near cut & paste of the Nasa page --Codejnki 14:04, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I wonder who's collection this satellite will end up in. With an expected orbit of 240 years, you just know that it's going to be salvaged before it burns up. Being the third man-made object to be launched into space would have a great deal of historical value to quite a few people. 24.65.90.29 05:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)headkase

Is this satellite going to come down sooner or later? This website says the exact opposite of what's on the page, that Vanguard's orbit is going to last a couple of thousand years rather than a couple of hundred. [1]--UrsusArctosL71 (talk) 02:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mass

This thing is around 5 feet across but only weighs about 3 pounds? I realize that aluminum is light, but is this correct? -Grammaticus Repairo 06:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure about that Grammaticus? The article states the sphere is 152mm in diameter - that's six inches. --Bradg 07:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Bradg is correct. It's about the size of a grapefruit. --William Ackerman 15:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking 152cm...my bad! -Grammaticus Repairo 18:27, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Optical Tracking?

Can this grapefruit-sized object really be tracked optically from earth, even with a powerful telescope? -Grammaticus Repairo 02:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes. The U.S. built a network of Baker-Nunn cameras for this purpose. Here's a ref. [2] --agr 03:15, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 108 MHz?

Is the 108 MHz figure for the transmitter frequency correct? This seems unlikely, since that puts it inside the aviation navigation (VOR/ILS) band. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)