HisTech By JOHN SMITH / 10th May 2019
Surprise†might be an understatement to describe amateur astronomer Phil Williams’ reaction upon being told that the ghostly radio signal he had detected was, in fact, coming from a satellite that had failed and disappeared decades ago.
Williams told Southgate Amateur Radio News that the signal he detected from his base in Cornwall seemed to cycle every four seconds, diminishing and returning to create an eerie repetitive sound.
It would later be determined that the fluctuation was the result of the long-lost satellite barreling end over end through the void of space, causing variations in the light reaching the solar panels that Gunter’s Space Page says likely now power the depleted batteries of this 65 lb (30 kg) relic of the space age.
Scientists are unclear as to how the satellite continues to operate — Williams himself expressed some uncertainty as to how the craft might continue to function given the particularly harsh environment of space and its tendency to destroy electronic equipment.
The mystery is compounded by the fact that the propulsion system of the satellite, built by MIT’s Lincoln Lab and launched in February 1965, failed upon its launch and the craft was thought lost forever when it ceased to transmit in 1967.
After initially failing to reach its projected orbit, the satellite stopped communicating with its base for 46 long years before Williams’ discovery of its abrupt (and for some, alarming) revival.
More:
https://www.histecho.com/the-us-satellite-that-was-abandoned-in-space-in-1967-has-just-started-transmitting-again/
