Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (OGO) Program [1] of NASA refers to the six satellites launched by the United States that were in use from September 1964 to 1972, designed to study the Earth's magnetosphere.

The satellite's orientation is maintained fixed in space (3-axis stabilized) so that one of the long faces (0.9 × 1.8 m) permanently points towards Earth.

The attitude control system relies on horizon sensors, cold gas thrusters, and reaction wheels.

Due to a boom deployment failure shortly after orbital injection, the spacecraft was put into a permanent spin mode of 5 rpm about the Z axis.

In addition, there was one experiment for each of the following types of studies: interplanetary dust, VLF, Lyman-alpha, gegenschein, atmospheric mass, and radio astronomy.

Because of the boom deployment failure, the best operating mode for the data handling system was the use of one of the wideband transmitters and the directional antenna.

[6] The University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey (CSS), funded by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), detected an object late in the evening of 25 August 2020 which appeared to be on an impact trajectory with Earth.

Maui Waena Intermediate School eighth-graders Holden Suzuki and Wilson Chau, with mentor outreach astronomer J.D.

Armstrong of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy (IfA), used data from the Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) Faulkes Telescope North on Haleakala to track OGO-1.

[8] The University of Hawaii's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), also funded by PDCO, independently observed the object.

OGO-1 reentered Earth's atmosphere and disintegrated on Saturday evening, 29 August 2020 over Southern French Polynesia.