British try to talk to old Satellite

Cork boy 55

Nostalgia from the only nation to to develop and give up a space launch capability

It sounds like the opener to a sci-fi B-movie plot: Scientists find an old, dead satellite from the 1970's orbiting Earth. Out of interest, they send a command to the chunk of space junk to switch it on, just on the off-chance its circuits are still intact...

However, this is not a fictional account of tinkering with 40-year old technology. A British Ph.D. student really wants to wake up an old satellite, one that hasn't transmitted since 1996.

The satellite, called Prospero X3, is the only British satellite to have been launched by a British rocket in 1971. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of its launch, Roger Duthie and colleagues from University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) want to reestablish contact with the 66 kilogram silent spacecraft.

http://news.discovery.com/space/can-a-dead-satellite-be-reanimated-110907.html

amen

hmm what secrets does it that they want back!

Rubecula

Sounds like an episode of Quatermass.:D