Hacker News Reader

Hackers damaged/destroyed the ROSAT satellite in the late 90s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROSAT#End_of_operations

Your link contradicts that (or at least has NASA denying it):

> However, NASA officials in charge of the day-to-day operations of the ROSAT mission at Goddard, including GSFC Rosat Project Scientist Rob Petre, say definitively that no such incident occurred. Talleur's information appears to have come from one of his interns who exaggerated a hacking incident on an office computer not related to flight operations.

Ah, you're right - I'd vaguely remembered seeing this before and pasted the wikipedia section without reading it thoroughly. My mistake!

From what I've heard, there are many vulnerable old satelites orbiting around the earth. The attack hasn't happened simply because communication equipment is out of hand for an malicious individual and there is no way he can hide the act.

There are already people who talk with satellites, recover them or make older ones work again. It’s one google search away.