B.C. ASTRONOMER’S NASA FIND.

1 NASA HAD WRITTEN IT OFF

An amateur astronomer in Roberts Creek, B.C., has discovered a satellite that NASA had long since given up for space junk.

2 SPOTTED FROM ROOF CONTRAPTION

Scott Tilley, a 47-yearold electrical technologist, searches for spy satellites by using radio frequency signals and a contraption of remote control cameras and antennas on the roof of his home on the Sunshine Coast. He was sleuthing through space on Jan. 20 when he found a signal coming from a satellite called IMAGE, or Imager for Magneto-pause-to-Aurora Global Exploration.

3 CONTACT LOST IN ’05

NASA launched IMAGE in 2000 to record the Earth’s magnetosphere and produce images of plasma populations. But contact with the probe was lost in 2005 and the mission was abandoned in 2007. “It was no longer talking anymore and it was just a piece of space junk,” said Tilley.

4 ATTEMPTS TO CALL HOME

With the help of friend and fellow astronomer Cees Bassa, Tilley calculated that IMAGE had been trying to call home for more than a year. But its messages were lost among the din of other chattering satellites. He contacted a scientist who developed IMAGE. “I had dozens of emails from all the different researchers ... and they were all very excited,” said Tilley. Then he heard from a mission director at NASA.

5 AGE A PROBLEM

Scientists and engineers from the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland are to analyze IMAGE’s data over the next two weeks, but the satellite’s age poses a problem. “The types of hardware and operating systems used in the IMAGE Mission Operations Center no longer exist, and other systems have been updated several versions beyond what they were at the time.”