A Crashed Satellite can sometimes result from a player's orbital unit that expired.
It can be investigated by an Explorer.
Civilopedia Entry[]
In places, the surface was littered with the wreckage of satellites that had been placed in orbit to survey and analyze this new planet by the first exploratory missions … satellites which had served their purposes and eventually crashed when the explorers moved on. When the colonies began to launch orbitals, some of these fell back to the ground as well, pulled down by the inexorable force of gravity. Most of these wrecks offered valuable salvage to those willing to dig for it.