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What is the biggest of space junk in orbit? What was it used for and is there a picture?

enter image description here Source: Wikipedia

Muze
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    Are you restricting space junk (as in defunct spacecraft) to Earth orbit or do you allow any junk (including junk orbiting other bodies)? – Polygnome Apr 20 '18 at 11:36
  • In some years, may be some decades, the ISS will be the biggest one. It is too expensive to lift the orbit periodically when the ISS is no longer used and inhabited. – Uwe Apr 20 '18 at 17:23

1 Answers1

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The UCS has a list of satellites which can be sorted by launch mass.

The top 10 is mostly spy satellites for which it's difficult to determine if they're active or defunct.

The heaviest satellite of which I'm sure it's not functional, is Envisat at 8 tons.

enter image description here

(1:1 model of Envisat at Space Expo in Noordwijk, the Netherlands)

This list doesn't account for upper stages etc., but even a big upper stage like the Ariane 5 ESC-A weighs only 3 tons empty. The Saturn 5 upper stages are bigger, but aren't in Earth orbit.

Hobbes
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    +1 for the link to that database! Wow, Envisat is big. I was sure it would be the 3rd Milstar but not even close. – Organic Marble Apr 20 '18 at 13:53
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    +1 for making me wonder where the Saturn 5 upper stages are: https://www.seeker.com/what-happened-to-all-the-saturn-v-rocket-stages-1768231080.html. Someone should post this as an SSE question. :) – Don Branson Apr 20 '18 at 15:26
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    fyi I've just asked Is there a database for space junk beyond Earth orbit, and is Roadster in it? – uhoh Apr 20 '18 at 18:51
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    Where did you get the data with Envisat? I have been looking at the data and the heaviest sats I found were the Keyholes which are listed as 10 tons – OganM Apr 20 '18 at 20:11
  • as I said in my answer, I sorted the list by launch mass, and went from the top. Everything above Envisat is classified, so I can't look up if the satellite is still active or not. – Hobbes Apr 21 '18 at 07:44
  • Agree with @OganM, whether sorting by launch mass or dry mass the Keyhole sats seem to be the largest (10 tonnes dry mass 18 tonnes launch mass). I can't even find Envisat, so maybe the list has changed since this answer was written? Although from a search it seems Envisat is still in orbit. – ben Apr 10 '19 at 22:42