Satellite has been dead for over 50 years and is mysteriously traveling halfway around the world

Space is a strange place and once again an event has baffled scientists. A satellite that has been dead for more than fifty years has drifted thousands of miles away. Something seems to have moved it from where it should be. The satellite would spend its last days in a quiet place in orbit around the Earth, but strangely enough it is floating above America.

Skynet-1A was launched into geostationary orbit over East Africa in 1969 and was used by the British Army for communications. After its work was done, it had to move to a place where it was not at risk of colliding with other defunct spacecraft.

However, the satellite is in a completely new location and is believed to have been sent there by a mysterious command, the BBC reported. It is currently 36,000 km above America. The dead satellite is now at risk of coming into contact with other pieces of space junk.

BBC reporter Jonathan Amos investigated Skynet-1A’s journey and says it was probably moved in the 1970s. Allegedly, Americans could have something to do with it.

Based on the report, it is impossible that Skynet-1A would have drifted to its current location under its own power. So someone definitely fired the satellite’s thrusters to move it west.

The satellite was built in the US and launched aboard the US Air Force’s Delta rocket. Washington also tested it before transferring its command to the Royal Air Force. According to some documents, control of Skynet-1A returned to the US in June 1977, the BBC report said.

This is when the US supposedly sent it away. However, satellites in GEO always remain in the same place above the Earth’s surface. But the final maneuver moved it toward America when it should have ascended to a higher orbit and headed to the orbital graveyard, a place where defunct satellites go.

The anomaly has led to the British Ministry of Defense monitoring the satellite to ensure no collisions occur. Space debris is a bigger problem these days, with experts sounding the alarm and saying it’s a matter of when, not if, a space collision could happen.