According to the old adage, what goes up must come down, unless you're talking about a satellite which can go up and never come down.

However, sometimes satellites do come down, when they're not expected, when they're not wanted.

Such was the case in 1978 with a Soviet spy satellite that spread its

debris, its nuclear debris, all over Northern Canada. Learn more about Cosmos 954, the Soviet satellite that came crashing to Earth on this episode of

Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by audible. My audiobook recommendation today is The First Space Race,

launching the world's first satellites by Matthew Billy and Erica Lishdock. The First Space Race

reveals the inside story of an epic adventure with world-altering stakes.

From 1955 to 1958, American and Soviet engineers battle to capture the world's imagination

by successfully launching the world's first satellite.

The race to orbit featured two American teams led by rival services, the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy,

and a Soviet effort so secret that few even knew it existed.

You can get a free one month trial to audible and two free audio books by going to audible

trial.com slash everything everywhere or by clicking on the link in the show notes.

On September 18th, 1977, the Soviet Union launched a reconnaissance satellite, aka a spy satellite as part of their Rorsat program.

That I should add is an English abbreviation of the program.

In Russian, the abbreviation actually is, believe it or not, USA.

The satellite was designed to monitor NATO and commercial sailing vessels by radar.

The name and number of the that the other side had spy satellites. The Rohr-Satt satellites were

extremely powerful and were only designed to be in service for a few months.

They would normally be launched if there was some sort of threat so they could

detect the movement of ships. The radar used so much energy that batteries wouldn't work.

Likewise, it had to be placed in a very low orbit to function properly.

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