{"id":52342,"date":"2023-07-10T23:48:34","date_gmt":"2023-07-10T21:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=52342"},"modified":"2025-07-10T02:17:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T00:17:54","slug":"les-1-the-enigma-of-the-zombie-satellite-that-returned-to-broadcast-after-45-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/07\/10\/les-1-the-enigma-of-the-zombie-satellite-that-returned-to-broadcast-after-45-years\/","title":{"rendered":"LES-1, the enigma of the 'zombie' satellite that returned to broadcast after 45 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those artificial satellites that resume their communications after being deactivated for a long time are known as \"zombie satellites\".<\/p>\n

The travel of the Galileo spacecraft inside Jupiter and what it found before disappearing<\/a><\/rel>
\nThe history of the five NASA spacecrafts that travel beyond the Solar System<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n

Today half a dozen zombie satellites are known to exist<\/a>. The second oldest, and the one with a particularly curious history, is the LES-1 (Lincoln Experimental Satellite 1)<\/strong>, launched from Cape Canaveral by the United States Air Force (USAF) with a rocket Titan IIIA on February 11, 1965. LES-1 was the first of nine military communications satellites designed by the Lincoln Laboratory<\/strong> of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a program funded by the USAF.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The first launch of a Titan IIIA rocket, like the one that launched the LES-1 satellite in February 1965 (Photo: USAF).<\/div>\n

NASA states<\/a> the following about these satellites and about the LET (Lincoln Experiment Terminals)<\/strong>, the ground stations that allowed these satellites to be used:<\/p>\n

\"The initial program objective was to build, launch, and field a LES and a LET that would work together as a system and demonstrate practical military satellite communications<\/strong>. The availability of Project West Ford's advanced superhigh-frequency (SHF) technology (at seven to eight gigahertz) contributed to the decision to design LES-1 and LET-1 for that band. The Department of Defense's concurrent procurement of a series of SHF satellites and terminals<\/strong>, commencing with the Initial Defense Communications Satellite Program (IDCSP), meant that lessons learned from LES-1 and LET-1 would find an additional application.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

NASA notes that LES-1 achieved only some of its goals. Apparently, due to poor circuit wiring, \"the satellite never left circular orbit and stopped transmitting in 1967\"<\/em><\/strong>. LES-2, the twin of LES-1, was successful and reached its planned final orbit on May 6, 1965. So, LES-1 was operational for only two years and then fell silent and was never heard from again. of him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The LES-1 satellite before its launch in 1965 (Photo: NASA).<\/div>\n

But the LES-1 story did not end there. For decades it orbited the Earth, silent<\/strong>, technically turned into space junk and forgotten amid a tangle of active satellites. On December 18, 2012, Phil Williams, a radio amateur from Cornwall, in South West from England, detected the signal from LES-1<\/a>, a signal that was verified by radio amateurs from other countries. You can hear that signal here:<\/p>\n