Opinion The oldest functional off-Earth space hardware? Well, that is a great question for those into pub quizzes, aka bar trivia. 1977's Voyagers ho

Mysteries in polar orbit – space's oldest working hardware still keeps its secrets

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2024-11-25 12:30:14

Opinion The oldest functional off-Earth space hardware? Well, that is a great question for those into pub quizzes, aka bar trivia. 1977's Voyagers hold some impressive records beside those golden discs, just not that one. Any guesses?

Astronomers are still bouncing range-finding lasers off the reflectors left on the Moon by Apollo 11, but fancy mirrors hardly count.

Nope. The best contender is from 1974 and wasn't even launched by NASA or the Soviets. It's still in orbit, still functioning remarkably well, it celebrates its 50th birthday this month, and, lastly, has the suitably prize-winning name of Oscar.

Its full name is AMSAT-OSCAR 7, known to its friends as Oscar 7, and it is remarkable for many reasons – not least of which are two great mysteries that may never be resolved. For a tiny box built on a budget that shames shoestrings for their conspicuous wealth, it pioneered some amazing technologies, got amazingly lucky more than once, and repaired itself after two decades of being dead (perhaps).

Start with the luck. The Oscar in Oscar-7 stands for Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio, and it was – is – the seventh of its kind. It cost around $60,000 in 1974 money (see PDF) to build, and as The World Radio News pointed out at the time "was built on evenings and weekends by volunteers, many of whom are involved professionally in the aerospace industry." It added: "A comparable satellite commercially built would cost two million dollars."