He is perhaps the first space buccaneer: a computer science graduate, his name: PistonMiner. The hacker recently presented his bachelor's thesis at the 38th Chaos Communications Congress (38C3). For this he hooked into the Beesat-1 satellite and gave it a new life. For more than ten years, he was considered just one of hundreds of wrecks in Earth orbit after repeatedly sending back junk data.
We'll tell you about the technical pioneering achievement that started at a party and could benefit humanity for decades to come.You can find out more about the cosmic garbage dump and what dangers it can pose to us in the long term in several articles:
Revival and a new eye over the earth
In the early 2000s, students at the Technical University of Berlin were given a task: They wanted to prove that they could build a satellite that was small and light, but still offered similar functions to conventional versions. Only 10×10×10 centimeters in size, cube-shaped and weighing less than a kilogram (Cubesat standards), Beesat was launched into orbit in 2009 on an Indian rocket. But the problems quickly piled up and so the TU Berlin gave up on it in 2013 because its continued operation seemed hopeless - until PistonMiner came knocking.
Significantly larger than any satellite and historically memorable, Skylab:
As he tells it, the hacker met the former Beesat project manager at a party at the TU Berlin. The latter was only there on a visit and has long been working elsewhere, but in conversation they began to go over what was going on at the time. At the end of the evening, PistonMiner had three things:
- The belief that it is just a software problem
- Permission to hack into the space relic (hence privateers, they hijacked another's cargo sailors with the permission of one major power).
- And last but not least, the information on how he can reach, reactivate and manipulate the satellite
This was followed by dozens of emails to get hold of the old program code, but after many hours of work, a well-founded hunch became certainty: a programming error in the Beesat's on-board computer caused the data waste. Through some detours, PistonMiner found a way to solve the problem and how the update could work in Earth orbit through tests on a cobbled-together replica on the ground.
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Because the satellite with the computing power of a Nintendo Gameboy, as the computer scientist explains, was only rudimentarily designed for software updates in orbit. In addition, even the data sets, which were only hundreds of kilobytes in size, posed a problem for updating.
Beesat can only be reached from Berlin in 90 minutes a day. On top of that, this time is divided into 15-minute chunks separated by long breaks - half in the morning and half in the evening. The reason is the satellite's sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 700 kilometers. Furthermore, only a few bytes can be sent per overflight. But PistonMiner used tricks to limit it to the bare essentials and so Beesat began his second career in September 2024 - with a new eye.
By chance, the hacker discovered that Beesat's camera was not broken, as previously thought. Here, too, a software bug essentially swallowed the recordings. They're not great photos, but Beesat is now more functional than ever since its savior sent another patch into space.
The ancestor outlives all descendants
After Beesat-1, another 2 to 13 followed. But all but one of the ancestor's descendants burned up in the atmosphere because most of them operated in significantly lower orbits.
Beesat-1 also faces this fate. But with luck, it could orbit the earth for another 20 years, taking photos and serving radio operators as a partner in their hobby thanks to PistonMiner. Because there is a digipeater on board Beesat-1. This repeats signals that it receives and sends them back to the surface of the earth that it has just flown over. You can find all the necessary data for this herethis amateur radio site.
At the end of his talk, PistonMiner symbolically bows to the entire team behind Beesat-1. Because even though it doesn't seem like it, the team did a fantastic job. The fact that the satellite is still almost 100 percent functional today, after more than 15 years in orbit, sets it apart from the crowd. Only the second on-board computer and a sensor may be damaged.
According to a slide from a scientific paper shown by the hacker, after just two years only two out of three cubesats launched will still be in use - and the trend will continue to decrease sharply from then on. Therefore: Beesat-1, respect!
The big picture:In fact, this project could cast a long shadow, because Beesat is far from the only dead satellite from a research institution. Many projects simply come to an end because the team disbands or funding ends. So perhaps other programmers will now feel motivated by PistonMiner's pioneering work to also do space archeology or privateering in orbit.
