‘It was a miracle.’ Amazing tales of dead spacecraft that came back to life

The CIRBE cubesat in the clean room at the University of Boulder, Colorado.

The hulk of metal moved silently through space, high above the blue Earth. Power no longer coursed through its wires, its instruments were dead to the outside universe, and its communications antenna was silent. To all intents and purposes it was deceased, and almost everyone back home had given up on it. Almost everyone. Despite … Read more