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Magnetosphere_rendition

Back in 2000, NASA launched the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (Epitome) satellite. It was the first satellite dedicated to observing the magnetosphere of the Earth and producing global images of plasma in the inner magnetosphere. One of the major goals of the projection was to map how the Earth'south magnetosphere interacted with the solar air current during a magnetic tempest (an issue like a coronal mass ejection would bulldoze a magnetic tempest). The satellite failed unexpectedly roughly five years into its mission.

Now, the satellite appears to have turned itself back on, as unexpectedly every bit it turned off. NASA lost contact with Image in 2005 when information technology failed to respond to communications. The organization hoped a 2007 eclipse might reboot the satellite, merely when that didn't happen, NASA turned off the computers and shut down the mission. Then, earlier this month, an amateur astronomer picked up a signal from the satellite.

IMAGE-NASA

The IMAGE satellite, dorsum on Earth in 2000.

NASA's biggest problem in confirming that the satellite was Prototype was in reading the data itself. The hardware that ran the Image program and the associated software for interpreting its signals accept both been deactivated. NASA's electric current guidance states:

To ostend beyond doubt that the satellite is IMAGE, NASA volition next attempt to capture and clarify data from the point. The challenge to decoding the signal is primarily technical. The types of hardware and operating systems used in the IMAGE Mission Operations Center no longer exist, and other systems take been updated several versions across what they were at the fourth dimension, requiring meaning reverse-engineering.

If data decoding is successful, NASA volition seek to turn on the science payload — currently turned off — to understand the status of the various science instruments. Awaiting the outcome of these activities, NASA will decide on how to proceed.

The organization's original diagnosis of the Image mission failure blamed the "instant trip" of the solid country power controller, which supplied power to its radio transponder. It is not known under what circumstances the breaker would've tripped, or what could've maybe caused it to reset in the meantime. Information technology's too not clear if there's any value to reactivating the satellite or what scientific enquiry information technology could still perform. Typically satellites this far outside their original mission parameters are low on fuel. It'southward besides not uncommon for satellites to have limited power reserves, either due to the age of their on-board power supplies, damage to solar panels, or other equipment degradation. And, of course, it's possible that Image'due south bones equipment is even so functional, but that its more than avant-garde scientific packages may not come back online.

If Paradigm can be coaxed back to life, it would exist an impressive feat, both for the current NASA personnel and for the people who built the satellite in the offset place. It's not articulate if NASA volition be able to figure out what happened, fifty-fifty if the satellite does come dorsum online; that information may non have been stored (or may non have survived afterwards and so long).