The United States and Russia for twenty years were the only ones launching satellites and spacecrafts into orbit, but four more nations were known to have orbital launch capability. Among them was Britain, who in 1960 embarked on a multiyear rocket development project called “Black Arrow.” The first and third attempted launches suffered mechanical failures and failed. The second one successfully reach suborbital height. The fourth was announced to be the last one, and engineers wanted to ensure it would reach Earth orbit.

On this day, October 28, in 1971, the last of the Black Arrow rockets took off from Woomera Test Range in Australia, carrying on board the satellite Prospero.

Prospero is still up in space, somewhere in low earth orbit, still transmitting, though now to no one in particular. The station set up to communicate with it was decommissioned in 1996. The British Starbrook surveillance system is still able to track the Prospero, which is not an easy feat when you consider there are now a thousand active satellites in Earth orbit, and forty times as many inactive objects.