- When I was looking for objects in space,
I found something completely unexpected.
(radio noises)
- Last month, a signal led to the discovery
of a satellite that NASA thought was gone forever.
- In the background, every day,
there are people going through their normal routines,
and don't work for space programs,
that understand why there's good reason to look.
(electronic music)
I'm an amateur astronomer.
It's kind of like a sport, right?
It's like trainspotting,
'cause when you look into space,
and you see something, you don't know what it is.
It could something as simple as debris,
or it could go to the other extreme,
military satellites in Earth orbit.
But, if it's in orbit, it can be observed.
You just need some time and understanding,
and you need a whole lot of patience.
(rhythmic music)
(bird noises)
My day job, I focus mostly on electronics
and electrical work.
I focus on boats now, in my career.
Boats are like satellites,
because they have a lot of similar things onboard.
They've got batteries, solar panels,
navigation systems, computers.
Satellites are the same thing,
except they're not floating on water,
they're floating in space.
Outside here, we've got the s-band antennas,
and up here on the roof, we've got the s-band tracking dish.
Quite sufficient for hearing things
about a million miles in space.
From the images that I obtain,
I can take positional observations,
time and location in the sky,
and use that to make very accurate
orbital predictions of the object.
(rattling)
It's obviously quite an abstract hobby.
(electronic noises)
The general interest in satellite tracking by amateurs
started with the first satellite, Sputnik 1.
The military really didn't know what to do.
They really didn't have an infrastructure
to track objects in Earth orbit,
so it fell upon amateurs.
As the Cold War developed, and got more intensified,
lots more stuff is ending up in space,
and there was this question.
"What are you launching?
"What are you doing?
"How do we know for sure that you're not
"putting nuclear weapons up there?"
That can create anxiety,
so that kind of reinvigorated the
amateur satellite tracking community,
'cause there's now hundreds of objects to track
that are not tracked publicly.
(typing sounds)
You're looking for objects in space,
and trying to catalogue them for what they are,
and identify them to the mission they belong to.
That's generally what I do.
So we're searching for this satellite called Zuma.
Zuma was a classified launch, in early January 2018.
There was no way to search for it visually, at the time,
so I started a radio search,
and I noticed a Doppler curve
that I didn't have catalogued.
But I immediately knew it wasn't Zuma.
The shape of the Doppler curve told me
it was in high Earth orbit.
I started studying the signal a bit further,
and found something completely unexpected.
It came back as 26-113.
IMAGE.
IMAGE was kinda a satellite rock star in its day.
According to NASA itself,
it was the second most important science generating mission
in the early 2000s.
What tweaked me, was reading a webpage
that basically said IMAGE had failed in 2005,
and contact was lost with it.
It just switched itself off, and had no way
of turning itself back on again.
Once I realized what it was,
at first, I thought to myself,
who's gonna listen to a guy like me,
that lives in the forest somewhere,
that doesn't work in the industry?
I just documented my process,
my observations.
Afterwards, I was able to identify
the principal investigator.
I found his email address,
and I sent him a very basic note.
"Hey, Dr. Burch. I believe your satellite's talking again."
(rhythmic music)
I woke up in the morning to a chorus of emails
from Dr. Burch, NASA engineers, former mission scientists,
all very excited about
the possibility of IMAGE being returned to them.
- An amateur astronomer in BC has made a discovery
that has gained NASA's attention.
- It kind of made me feel like
all the effort I've been doing, over the years,
had somehow been validated.
I don't receive any renumeration for what I do.
In my mind, that is the definition of an amateur.
There's always a lot to learn, and that's why I do it.
You're being motivated by the spiritual paycheck
you get out of doing it.
And, what I've discovered is,
it's not so much about looking up anymore,
it's about sharing that experience.
I feel, space,
it's a place where people may go someday, people may live.
Space can be utilized in a fair, safe, understandable way,
and I think that's really the most important thing.