Scientists stunned by new signals from ‘dead’ satellite in 1967: it was an Apollo-era relic

Space remains one of the final frontiers, still managing to astonish even those who dedicate their lives to studying it. That’s exactly what happened when a team of Australian astronomers picked up an unusually powerful radio signal just outside Earth’s atmosphere—so strong, in fact, that it drowned out every other signal in its vicinity. For a brief moment, they believed they’d stumbled upon something entirely new.

Research team makes astonishing match

“We got excited thinking we’d discovered an unknown object near Earth,” said Clancy James, an associate professor at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy in Western Australia.

The signal’s origin appeared suspiciously close to home—too close to be a natural cosmic source. After some calculation, the team pinpointed it as coming from roughly 2,800 miles (about 4,500 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface. That led them to an astonishing match: Relay 2, a long-defunct NASA satellite presumed dead since the 1960s.

How did they connect the dots? Using satellite tracking databases, the team checked the expected location of all known orbiting objects. Only one lined up with the signal’s origin point: the nearly 60-year-old Relay 2.

A satellite silent since the Johnson administration

At first, the realization was a letdown. But that disappointment quickly gave way to awe.

Relay 2 was an experimental communications satellite launched by NASA in January 1964. Its mission was to beam signals between the U.S. and Europe—and even broadcast the 1964 Tokyo Olympics across the Atlantic. Just three years later, in 1967, the satellite was officially retired and reclassified as space junk, left to drift in orbit as little more than a metallic fossil from the Cold War era.

Then, in 2024, it unexpectedly made its presence known again.

How a ‘dead’ satellite came back to life

So how did this ancient satellite suddenly transmit a detectable signal after nearly six decades of silence?

“When we first picked it up, the signal was pretty weak,” James explained. “But as we zoomed in, it got brighter. The entire burst lasts about 30 nanoseconds—that’s 30 billionths of a second—but the main spike is just three nanoseconds long. That’s right on the edge of what our instruments can detect.”

Researchers suspect one possible explanation is a sudden release of built-up static electricity on the satellite’s metallic surface. Another theory—less likely, but still plausible—involves a micrometeorite, smaller than a millimeter across, colliding with the satellite. That kind of impact could generate a burst of plasma—superheated, highly dense gas—which in turn might briefly emit a powerful radio signal.

Regardless of the cause, the rediscovery of Relay 2 highlights just how much human-made debris is floating above our heads. Thousands of satellites, probes, and spacecraft have been launched into orbit since the dawn of the space age, many of them now little more than spaceborne artifacts. Most never make a peep again.

But this one did. And nearly 60 years later, its sudden reawakening reminds us that even so-called “dead” technology can still surprise us.

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