Long "dead" NASA Image satellite detected by satellite signal hunter.

[cdev]

This is an amazing story!

https://skyriddles.wordpress.com/2018/01/21/nasas-long-dead-image-satellite-is-alive/

"Over the past week the station has been dedicated to an S-band scan looking for new targets and refreshing the frequency list, triggered by the recent launch of the mysterious ZUMA mission.  This tends to be a semi-annual activity as it can eat up a lot of observing resources even with much of the data gathering automated the data reviewing is tedious.

Upon reviewing the data from January 20, 2018, I noticed a curve consistent with an satellite in High Earth Orbit (HEO) on 2275.905MHz, darn not ZUMA… This is not uncommon during these searches.  So I set to work to identify the source.

A quick identity scan using ‘strf’ (sat tools rf) revealed the signal to come from 2000-017A, 26113, called IMAGE."

[img=https://skyriddles.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/image3.png?w=840]https://skyriddles.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/image3.png?w=840[/img]


..........

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Yeah amazing, kudos to him.

I wonder why NASA didn't realise though, maybe it was offline for a very long time.

[TheSteve]

Perhaps similar to Oscar 7 - pretty much dead for 21 years and then it came back to life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMSAT-OSCAR_7

[Mechatrommer]

how much cost do you think will be involved in getting it back and babysitting it? if they can track down 24,000 junks down to 10cm wide, do you think they bloody care? they are haunting burdens probably only scrap dealers care... https://www.wired.com/story/the-space-junk-problem-is-about-to-get-a-whole-lot-gnarlier/

[Neilm]

One report I read said that NASA had "decommisioned" all the gear used to communicate with it. From the sounds of it, a very fancy term to say "lost"

[cdev]

Now with software defined radio it should be a simple matter to reconfigure telemetry, IF the documentation of the equipment and the protocols is readily available.

20 or 30 years ago, it was an entirely different process and many of the signals that were received went through incredibly complicated signal chains, optimized to do things that would be tremendously more straightforward in software, some of the old equipment was actually mechanical, they did things mechanically.

Thats all they had back then.

[Dubbie]

I wouldn’t say “lost”. No sense in maintaining all the hardware, procedures and knowledge if the craft is believed dead. It was probably dismantled and the parts used in other projects or junked.

[Mechatrommer]

Now with software defined radio it should be a simple matter to reconfigure telemetry, IF the documentation of the equipment and the protocols is readily available.

IF... and if you have the protocol, the satellite is yours, you can aim it to enemy site or reposition it for long distance call in the cold war... or whatever... maybe a few cups of coffee may entertain the director in exchange for the protocol?

[Tomorokoshi]

From the Wiki on IMAGE:

NASA engineers will attempt to determine the satellite's status,[21][22] but the software and hardware type used in the IMAGE Mission Operations Centre have been discarded and no longer exist, so the operating system and hardware will have to be reverse-engineered.[23][24][25] Once that status is known, NASA will decide its course of action.

Another reason to keep all documentation and software. At least with documentation the hardware can be reconstructed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Orbiter_Image_Recovery_Project

[cdev]

Given that they thought the satellite was lost and it was many years later, that's not surprising.

One report I read said that NASA had "decommisioned" all the gear used to communicate with it. From the sounds of it, a very fancy term to say "lost"

[dr.diesel]

Minor update, NASA has made contact with IMAGE:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-image-confirmed