The Hubble Space Telescope has reached a significant milestone by completing 200 thousand orbits around the Earth. With 36 years of operation and over 1.7 million registered observations, this telescope is among the few orbital systems to achieve such a figure.
Hubble completes an almost circular orbit at an altitude of 470 to 475 kilometers, finishing each revolution in 94 minutes. This pace, maintained for decades, has allowed it to accumulate 200 thousand orbits during its service to date.
The oldest satellite still in orbit is Vanguard 1, launched in March 1958 at the beginning of the space race. It has currently completed more than 274,550 orbits. However, two scientific satellites surpass this figure.
Explorer 7, launched in October 1959, has accumulated over 347,440 orbits. Meanwhile, TIROS-1, a meteorological satellite launched in March 1960, has recorded over 352,640 orbits. Both satellites were placed in relatively elliptical orbits far from Earth, which allowed them to complete such a number of laps, although their missions were relatively short.
The International Space Station (ISS) could also be included in this ranking. It orbits the Earth every 93 minutes, completing more than 15 revolutions per day. Since its first module was launched in 1998, the orbital laboratory has accumulated about 152,800 orbits to date.
The information was first presented on the Olhar Digital portal in a publication titled 'Telescópio Hubble atinge marca impressionante no espaço.'