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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: February 11, 2018

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REAL LIFE NEWS: NASA SATELLITE COMES BACK TO LIFE AFTER TEN YEARS

by Hazed

Ten years ago a NASA satellite died from systems failure. The IMAGE satellite, short for Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration, was launched in 2000 but was lost five years later.

Now it has been found again. Astronomer Scott Tilley was searching for signs of a different satellite – Zuma, a classified US government satellite which was declared a “total loss” shortly after its launch. Instead, he came across a signal from a satellite labelled “2000-017A”. He explains in a blog post (see the first link below) how he discovered its identity: IMAGE.

The lost satellite is still transmitting data, so some of its six onboard instruments must still be active.

NASA confirmed that the signals do seem to be coming from IMAGE. They used the Deep Space Network to verify Scott’s observation. Now they need to figure out how to wake it up. The problem is that they no longer have the electronics and software that are compatible with the satellite.

The engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center have received enough data that they can say that IMAGE’s “battery is fully charged, and that overall, the satellite itself seems to be in good shape”. The engineers are putting together what NASA describes as a “small control centre” that can understand and control the satellite. This will involve recreating the 12-year-old software, and finding a machine that can run instrument commands.

Source: https://skyriddles.wordpress.com/2018/01/21/nasas-long-dead-image-satellite-is-alive/
https://gizmodo.com/over-a-decade-later-nasas-long-dead-image-satellite-ma-1822479068
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/30/zombie_satellite_is_image/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/06/nasa_image_satellite_update_battery_is_full_satellite_working/

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