But although NASA was able to find the signal for the same satellite and it looked pretty much like IMAGE,it couldn’t confirm for definite – because the technology on the craft was so old, the agency couldn’t talk to it anymore.
The IMAGE spacecraft undergoing launch preparations in early 2000. (Credit: NASA)
Both the hardware and software aboard IMAGE is now basically obsolete and NASA had to reverse-engineer a way to decode its data and send signals that its operating system could receive.
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab finally successfully collected telemetry data from the satellite on January 30 and interpreted the signal as coming from spacecraft ID 166 – IMAGE.
“The NASA team has been able to read some basic housekeeping data from the spacecraft, suggesting that at least the main control system is operational,” the agency said in a statement.
“Scientists and engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center will continue to try to analyse the data from the spacecraft to learn more about the state of the spacecraft. This process will take a week or two to complete as it requires attempting to adapt old software and databases of information to more modern systems.”
">NASA has confirmed that the satellite found by an amateur astronomer is indeed the long-lost, presumed-dead IMAGE spacecraft.
Scott Tilley picked up the signal from IMAGE while scouring the skies to see if he could find the super-secret spy satellite Zuma, launched by SpaceX earlier this month. He guessed that it was the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) spacecraft, a mission launched in 2000 and lost five years later.
But although NASA was able to find the signal for the same satellite and it looked pretty much like IMAGE,it couldn’t confirm for definite – because the technology on the craft was so old, the agency couldn’t talk to it anymore.
The IMAGE spacecraft undergoing launch preparations in early 2000. (Credit: NASA)
Both the hardware and software aboard IMAGE is now basically obsolete and NASA had to reverse-engineer a way to decode its data and send signals that its operating system could receive.
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab finally successfully collected telemetry data from the satellite on January 30 and interpreted the signal as coming from spacecraft ID 166 – IMAGE.
“The NASA team has been able to read some basic housekeeping data from the spacecraft, suggesting that at least the main control system is operational,” the agency said in a statement.
“Scientists and engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center will continue to try to analyse the data from the spacecraft to learn more about the state of the spacecraft. This process will take a week or two to complete as it requires attempting to adapt old software and databases of information to more modern systems.”
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