When launched, Olympus was the largest civilian comsat ever. Formerly known as L-Sat (large satellite), it was intended particularly to demonstrate the potential of comsats for education. Olympus carries four separate communications payloads and multiple steerable antennas. Perhaps the most important payload is the one that offers two direct broadcasting system (DBS) channels, with powerful transmitters beaming signals that can be received on small domestic satellite dishes only 30 cm across. One DBS channel is used by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and Eurostep, an organization association with over 300 members formed to promote tele-education, and offering up to nine hours of educational programmes a day. The other DBS channel is used by Italian television. Two other payloads using narrow spot-beam antennas to provide channels for more restricted communications for use by businesses and universities, and for tele-education and news broadcasting. The fourth payload is a beacon for radio propagation study. Olympus was launched by Ariane rocket from the Kourou Space Centre in July 1989 and worked perfectly for 22 months. But on May 29, 1991, an anomaly occurred in the spacecraft's on-board control system which set it rolling and tumbling out of control. Its solar panels were turned away from the Sun, and the satellite lost all power. Its propellants and batteries froze, and it began drifting off station. Olympus seemed dead. But there was just an outside chance that the satellite could be revived. So a mission recovery team was established at ESOC, the European Space Operations Centre at Darmstadt, Germany. There followed one of the most dramatic attempts in space history to save an ailing satellite. It took three weeks of painstaking tracking and communications attempts before the team were able to get Olympus to respond to any commands at all. A few days later, the charging of its batteries began, and by July 1 the recovery team were able to command the satellite to rotate the solar panels fully to face the Sun. But it took another three weeks before the spacecraft thawed out completely. Test firings of its thrusters began on July 26, and three days later the spacecraft was at last under control again. In two weeks it was back on station above the Equator at longitude 19o West, having circled the Earth once since it went out of action 76 days before. One by one the systems of the spacecraft were switched on and checked out. By early September all systems were pronounced in working order. Olympus was ready to be put back in service, hopefully until the end of its design lifetime of 10 years. The cost of the recovery operation? Less than one per cent of what it would have cost to replace the satellite.