Amateur astronomer discovered NASA 's artificial satellite "IMAGE" which was missing since 2005, and the satellite was still alive

NASA's Earth magnetospheric observation satellite that was launched in 2000 and was finally missing a call for 2005IMAGEWas discovered by an amateur astronomer for the first time in about twelve years. IMAGE is still in orbit around Earth and it is emitting a signal to communicate with the Earth.

NASA's Long Dead 'IMAGE' Satellite is Alive! - Riddles in the Sky
https://skyriddles.wordpress.com/2018/01/21/nasas-long-dead-image-satellite-is-alive/

Amateur astronomer discovers a revived NASA satellite | Science | AAAS
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/amateur-astronomer-discovers-revived-nasa-satellite

IMAGE is an artificial satellite that observes the global change of the Earth's magnetosphere due to the influence of the solar wind and was launched from the Vandenberg Air Force Base by the American Delta II rocket on March 25, 2000. After that, against the equatorial plane of the earthOrbital inclination angleHas entered into an unusual orbit called "90 degrees" has conducted a number of observations, but in 2005 the communication was severed and the mission was terminated in December of the same year.


But about twelve years later on January 20, 2018, American amateur astronomer Scott Tilly received a radio signal that IMAGE issued. Tilly was originally launched by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket on January 8, 2018, but it is a secret artificial satellite thought to have failed to put in orbitZUMAAlthough I was exploring the way to go, it seems that it was a mysterious radio wave that turned out to be a signal of IMAGE after that.

This frequency graph shows the state at that time. A transmission wave signal with a frequency of 2270.505 MHz is recorded at the center, and a signal indicating data is recorded above and below 1.7 MHz.


Tilly, who studied the signal in detail, found that there is a pattern specific to the signal. It turned out that this is due to the "Doppler effect" in which the radio wave frequency is affected when the satellite emitting radio waves approaches or moves away from the Earth. Just as the ambulance approaches and goes away, the same thing as the pitch changes is also in the radio waves of the satellite.


By comparing this pattern with past data, Tilly found out that the satellite that is emitting this signal is "2000-017 A". And it turned out that this number was IMAGE which ended up lost at the end of 2005. When Tilly announces this on his blog, there seems to be a response from many people and NASA officials.

Tilly worked on IMAGE's development on January 24th and contacted Dr. James L. Birch of NASA who led the project team and told that he discovered IMAGE, Dr. Birch immediately told " I was excited about it. " After that, Mr. Richard J. Barry, former IMAGE's ground system manager who received contact from Dr. Birch, told Mr. Tilly and told me that he shared the information with the relevant departments of NASA. After that, after various detailed confirmation was done, it seems that the signal was actually confirmed from IMAGE.

IMAGE before normal operation and communication stops, the satellite himself was doing a spin motion that makes one revolution in 120 seconds. Although the number of revolutions at this time is expressed as "0.5 rpm", from the pattern of the received signal, IMAGE at rediscovery is confirmed that this revolution number has been reduced to 0.34 rpm about. The situation is shown in the graph below.


In the future, NASA will confirm whether the battery and electronic equipment will operate properly, and confirm whether IMAGE can be restarted. It seems that at least some of the six observation instruments installed in IMAGE are still working properly.