NASA Confirms: Its Undead Satellite is Operational
Late last month, news broke that a satellite sleuth had spotted what appeared to be a lost NASA probe alive and sending out data. Now, NASA has officially confirmed the identity of the satellite as the IMAGE orbiter and is in the process of restoring the capability of processing the data that it is sending down. While we don't yet know whether any of its instruments are operational, one of its original team members is arguing that the hardware can still produce valuable science.
And NASA has determined that the craft's return to life is even more mysterious than we'd realized. When IMAGE originally lost contact, it was using its backup hardware after the primary set shut down. Upon its return, IMAGE is using its primary hardware again.
For those interested in all the details of the saga, NASA has put up a page where it's posting updates on its attempts to revive the satellite. In late January, the Goddard Flight Center was given time on NASA's Deep Space Network to have a listen to the craft. By the end of the month, the agency confirmed that this was indeed IMAGE and started trying to produce a software environment that could process the data it was sending.
"The types of hardware and operating systems used in the IMAGE Mission Operations Center no longer exist," NASA's Miles Hatfield wrote, "and other systems have been updated several versions beyond what they were at the time, requiring significant reverse-engineering."
Maybe NASA could make the raw feeds and existing specs available on the internet and let some of us have at it? Offer a bounty to the first folks who can demonstrate a program that can properly decode it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @05:13PM (4 children)
Now return to normal programming.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @05:21PM
I for one welcome our new NS overlords.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday February 09 2018, @09:51PM (1 child)
The news here is how quickly NASA abandons things and burns bridges.
Had the satellite been working all along, they probably would have shut it off by now.
Launched in 2005, and they can't do anything with it because all of their systems have changed!!!???
Every piece of equipment from 2005 that I still have is operational I can still talk to it. I've got disk drives older than that. I've got Linux servers running versions from 2005.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday February 09 2018, @11:11PM
Agreed. Taxpayer money wasted- the hardware was sold for scrap value, software erased?
But what hardware? Is it all that specialized? NASA, please be specific. They can communicate and receive data from IMAGE, so it's not RF stuff. There are lots of us who might have, or know where to get the hardware and would love to help, as did the amateur astronomer who found the IMAGE satellite.
But more to the point: what software? You mean they didn't keep copies? How difficult is that?
And it can't be adapted to "modern" hardware??
A few years ago I remember reading articles about NASA hiring forensic engineers- to comb through "space junkyards" and reverse-engineer old rockets, control systems, etc. NASA forgot how to do space.
I suppose it creates jobs... but society is running in place. No flying cars for you!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday February 10 2018, @12:52PM
It's a NAS?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday February 09 2018, @05:22PM (4 children)
They're a little slow, but they get the job done.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @06:04PM (3 children)
I concur, obviously the aliens rebooted it, they are probably using it to forward episodes of big bang theory to their home world.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @06:58PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @07:09PM
My aren't you humorless. It was a joke slugger, get over yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 10 2018, @05:29AM
So....you're saying that these are rebel aliens sending garbage to their homeworld in an attempt to drive their enemies insane?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @05:28PM (6 children)
I still have 486sx25 with 12MB of memory and 273MB hard drive running part of network. So old equipment is not the problem. Most of my equipment is 10 to 12 yrs old. Even have Suns, HP-UXs and IBM p w/ AXs, For the period.
I have Diskettes, CD, and Back drive with Distros of all flavours going back 20yrs. Slack, Puppy, Rock, what do you need?
I diskettes and old CD rom drives (down to 4 speed). to assemble tothe need.
If I do not have it in "stock" at home, I could drig it up somewhere in a few days. And dig is an operational word. Leaved in area where the "environmental sound" recycler was caught digging holes at ends of backroads and bury the hardware, since it could not sell it.
Lastly there is hardware in the Seattle Computer Museum.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @05:46PM (2 children)
No one cares how much old shit you have in your house.
You sound like a fucking hoarder.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hartree on Friday February 09 2018, @10:18PM (1 child)
"No one cares how much old shit you have in your house."
No. You say don't care.
But, you still seem to care enough to take the time to call them out on it. Is this sort of cognitive dissonance a pattern with you?
"You sound like a fucking hoarder."
I hope they are fucking. If the OP is having sex then they may be having kids (or had kids who may be having kids) so maybe there'll be more hoarders to save the "throw it out now!" crowd when old but critical systems go down.
Having the old computers I've hung on to saves the University I work for lots of money since they don't have to trash the analytical instruments that are run by those old computers (and they're often quarter million dollar machines). So, I'm proud of being a hoarder of old tech. And you can shove one of my original (And, yes I still have them in the original box) IBM PCs... Well, I'll let you use your imagination. If that's not good enough, I know someone who still has 3 MITS Altairs that haven't been put together yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 10 2018, @07:20AM
Having the old computers I've hung on to saves the University I work for lots of money
That was a significant portion of the thinking that went on in Munich when they were deciding to switch to Linux.
Can't wait to see what the voters have to say about the millions they are going to spend in order to get hardware compatible with Redmond's latest.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Friday February 09 2018, @08:17PM (2 children)
Very smart! We're saving TREMENDOUS money by sticking with the old cyber. No Meltdown, no Spectre. I knew something like that would happen. Because they're making the digital too complicated, you have to be Einstein to figure it out. Why put in new cyber every 4 years when the old stuff does the job? You keep what works. And it's very environmental, I've gotten so many awards for environmental.
We're saving big money on satellite too. I'm giving this one a new name, it's still IMAGE. I Make America Great, Extremely. What do you think? We're doing a great job!
(Score: 3, Funny) by JNCF on Friday February 09 2018, @08:39PM
IMAGE Makes America Great
ExponetiallyEphemerally(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @08:57PM
XD
(Score: 5, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday February 09 2018, @05:31PM
Has anyone checked that it still looks the same as it used to? It hasn't been... modified in any way?
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/V%27ger [wikia.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 09 2018, @07:10PM
Even though you would hope that the specs are good enough to reconstruct the expected data patterns, I wouldn't bet on it.
The best chance NASA has for interpreting the data stream is to dig up one of the fossils who put it together in the first place.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Friday February 09 2018, @07:16PM
datatype1 decode_image_feed (datatype2 inputdata) {
// reserved spot for government backdoor
return 4;
}
Just need to know how they want the data formatted, now. Excel spreadsheet?
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday February 09 2018, @07:53PM (6 children)
"The next step is to attempt to turn on the science instruments – but this could take some time as the 12-year-old software to do so must be recreated."
Did the the press contact mis-speak, because they don't actually understand the words they are saying?
If not, then WTF? Does NASA not know what backups are? Storage is cheap, there seems no reason why the software should not have been archived, along with all necessary information on how to make it work. I have personal backups much older than 12 years. An institution like NASA, whose work has historical significance, should be archiving forever.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 09 2018, @08:26PM
Probably a combination of mission control alterations over the years, software upgrades (possibly including elimination of old hardware, like sparc or power, etc that other projects didn't use), and ~12 years of related changes without the expectation that this collection of software would be needed in this configuration again.
Keep in mind most NASA hardware is purpose-built. This means the radio frequencies, the hardware stack, and the software stack may all be dramatically different for a particular satellite, probe, or other piece of extraterrestrial tech. When you combine this with a piece of hardware that was DECLARED LOST over a decade ago, it is not at all unsurprising that the hardware might have been sold/recycled/replaced either due to failure or obsolescence and the software relegated to a take-home memory or far corner of a storage warehouse somewhere for which the paperwork may have become corrupted/incomplete.
While I would like to believe bureaucracy was better at filing and storing things for long periods of time, NASA just as often has things recovered thanks to recyclers/junk dealers as it does thanks to internal staff itself.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 09 2018, @08:54PM (2 children)
Software last used 12 years ago was likely written 20 years ago, by contractors who were let go to other industries somewhere in-between.
Somebody could likely look up where all the old documentation is stored and retrieve it, but that's a lot of effort to find something that nobody on-site is likely to know what to do with once they find it...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Saturday February 10 2018, @03:19AM (1 child)
This. We are certainly talking about "enterprise" type software. The sort of stuff you would find on big back room servers. This kind of software often leaves backwards compatiblity in the dust, makes major changes in small point releases, quickly drops support for old versions, and keeps everything that interacts with it on a constant upgrade cycle. Feel glad if you have never had to deal with this kind of crap.
If you have Windows 10 32-bit loaded on your computers, you can still run some programs that compiled for Windows 1.0! Does anyone really think this satellite is running Windows? :P
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 10 2018, @05:17PM
Interesting point: if the satellite was assumed dead for many years, the ground based copies of the hardware were probably discarded. Now, if it were my space program I would insist on at least keeping a soft emulator available forever, regardless, but I'd bet that budgets don't provide enough overhead to include that kind of future maintenance capability assurance.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Friday February 09 2018, @09:30PM
You expect too much of government, these folks couldn't even keep track of the original moon landing tape. I only hope the NSA is as incompetent as NASA.
(Score: 3, Informative) by daver!west!fmc on Friday February 09 2018, @10:07PM
Some de-archiving may have been accomplished.
http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2018-February/037807.html [classiccmp.org]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday February 09 2018, @09:43PM (1 child)
Initial output from my program: "Brains ... Brains ..."
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday February 10 2018, @04:48PM
Since it is a computer, I'm pretty sure it's "CPUs … CPUs …"
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.