When NASA lost contact with the IMAGE satellite in 2005, an amateur radio operator in Canada named Scott Tilley picked up its signal in January 2018 while hunting for a classified spy satellite, and the spacecraft turned out to be still spinning, still powered, and still trying to phone home after 13 years of silence. (opens in new tab)

On the night of January 20, 2018, an amateur radio operator and electrical engineer named Scott Tilley sat in his backyard observatory in Roberts Creek, British Columbia, sweeping a software-defined radio across the S-band looking for a classified American spy satellite called Zuma. He never found Zuma. Instead, his receiver locked onto a steady carrier […]