5 February 2018 – Latest Data From IMAGE Indicates Spacecraft’s Power Functional

Current information from the IMAGE spacecraft shows that the battery is fully charged, and that overall, the satellite itself seems to be in good shape.  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.  Additionally, as computers have evolved greatly in that time, work is being done to find a machine that can run the instrument commanding software.

During this process of inspecting the spacecraft, there are several puzzles that the team is investigating to better understand the spacecraft’s health and how best to communicate with it, including:

What caused the spacecraft to reboot and begin sending signal again?

Why is one side of the on-board electronics working and not the other? We are currently communicating with IMAGE through the original A side of the on-board electronics.  The A side was thought to have failed in 2004, when the communications were switched to the redundant B side.  How and why the A side is now working is something we are looking at.

As we move forward, NASA is starting to recreate a small control center that can generate the commanding needed to better understand and control the satellite.  This will then allow us to gain insights into the state of various science instruments, and see whether any are still functional.  Should any of the instruments be functional, NASA will convene a panel of external scientists to assess the science potential in the context of constrained budgets for operating spacecraft.