Halley's Artificial Comet

The Artificial Comet would be a satellite like vehicle traveling a comet-like trajectory with a special purpose: visit the earth every couple of decades, record some history, and beam back old history.

The vehicle would equipped with a broad spectrum radio wave recorder/transmitter and a solar reflector that can be modulated to send morse-code messages down to earth during visits. [The message would be something like "This is Halley Prime on its 274th decennial visit to Earth. Transmitting on frequencies x, y, z, etc.]

Upon approaching earth, the vehicle would send very simple morse-coded messages using its solar reflector (such that people have a chance of decoding the message or at least realizing that there IS a message no matter at what stage the technology is on Earth during the visit) as well as transmit snippets of what it recorded during its previous visits, some pictures it had taken during the previous visits, and possibly telemetry from the time it was away from Earth.

I envision the design to be made in such a way that the Artificial Comet would survive several centuries or millenia, such that future generations (that may or may not have a record of what went on during earlier visits) would have some "new" history to work with.

The visits should be frequent enough that people (ideally) do not forget about how to interpret the RF coded messages, but infrequent enough to be a novelty. (Every 10 years, 15 years perhaps?). On board data storage would necessarily be limited, and technology may evolve (or devolve) to a point where the vehicle can't record anything from Earth except pictures during future visits -- but I'm sure something like this would have good historical value by tha time.