Abandoned in space in 1967, a U.S. satellite started transmitting again in 2013
Nov 28,
2017 Stefan Andrews
After
learning that a satellite that’s been silent for decades has suddenly started
sending out new signals you may, of course, suspect that the device has been
hijacked by aliens now trying to communicate with Earth. Perhaps they’re
warning us that they are planning an invasion!
It’s
possible such thoughts ran through the mind of Phil Williams, an English
amateur radio astronomer based in Cornwall, who was the first person to pick up
the strange signals coming in as “ghostly sounds” in 2013. It turned out that
the transmitted messages were coming from an abandoned LES1 satellite, but
experts needed three more years to authenticate that this was indeed the
American satellite that was “lost” in 1967.
LES1 was
one of several units produced and launched into space by the Lincoln Laboratory
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in between 1965 and 1967.
These units, primarily designed for testing new satellite communication
technology, were each labeled with numbers, running from LES1 to LES9.
As it
turned out, the launch of the first four satellites did not go that well. LES1,
in particular, failed to reach most of its planned objectives. Contact with the
satellite was completely lost two years after its launch, and it has ever since
revolved around our planet, staying entirely out of touch. Things went better
for the later four, LES5 to LES9 units; the LES7 unit was canceled as the
program was then coming to an end and there was no more funding for it.
What
surprised everyone in 2013 is that LES1 started sending signals in repeats of
every four seconds. Phil Williams has suggested that a failure in one of
the device components is what perhaps caused it to start sending signals again.
The
designated frequency of the signal is 237 MHz. However, the satellite manages
to send the transmissions only when its solar panels are directly exposed to
light. The signal reportedly ceases once the craft’s panels fall into the
shadow of the satellite’s own body. “Tension in the solar panels jumps,
and it can do the phantom signal,” Williams has stated.
It is
probable that the satellite’s on-board battery is entirely diminished by now,
so what powers the transmission of the signals is a bit of a mystery. As
to whether LES1 poses any threat, there is apparently nothing to fear. This is
yet one more piece of space junk spinning around in orbit.
What’s
more striking is that the electronics used in LES1 were produced five decades
ago and though they’ve been exposed to the severe conditions of space, they
still appear to be in some sort of working order. And five decades ago is a
long time in terms of the technology and its development.
LES1 was
launched more than a decade before the probe Voyager-1 was
launched into space to explore the outer realms of the solar system. And the
electronics used back in the 1960s were way simpler than those used since,
hence, perhaps, their durability.
The news
of this out-of-date satellite coming back online after so much time staying
silent has certainly surprised everyone within the scientific community. The
satellite was launched February 11, 1965, from Cape Canaveral. It ceased
sending signals just two years later. Still, this is not the only case of a
satellite having been lost and then found again.
It also
happened to the much more costly Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft
(SOHO), which disappeared without a trace back in 1998. SOHO stopped sending
signals while conducting its mission of observing the sun. NASA astronomers
eventually located the lost craft and re-established contact with it as it was
helplessly spinning in space.
In the
case of SOHO, it was reportedly a glitch in the software that led to the
craft’s malfunction. The satellite was eventually fully recovered, and it
continued its set mission. But in the case of LES1, it all seems a lot more
strange and way more unexpected as such an old piece of equipment had been long
forgotten.