Rachel Courtland in an article on the
Institute of Electrical and Electronic
Engineers (IEEE) web site reports on a private team of space
enthusiasts who raised nearly USD160,000 and that have successfully begun
two-way communication with the 35-year-old ISEE-3 (
International Sun/Earth Explorer, later International Cometary Explorer)
spacecraft using the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
ISEE-3 was one of the first spacecraft ever placed near the
L1 point
and was the first spacecraft ever to visit a comet when it passed through
the tail of Giacobini-Zinner in 1985.
However, NASA lost contact with the spacecraft in 1998.
The ISEE-3 Reboot team's intent is to -
Quote:
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Originally Posted by "ISEE-3 Reboot team"
... contact the ISEE-3 (International Sun-Earth Explorer) spacecraft, command it to fire its engines and enter an orbit near Earth, and then resume its original mission - a mission it began in 1978. ISEE-3 was rechristened as the International Comet Explorer (ICE). If we are successful it may also still be able to chase yet another comet.
Working in collaboration with NASA we have assembled a team of engineers, programmers, and scientists - and have a large radio telescope fully capable of contacting ISEE-3. If we are successful we intend to facilitate the sharing and interpretation of all of the new data ISEE-3 sends back via crowd sourcing.
NASA has told us officially that there is no funding available to support an ISEE-3 effort - nor is this work a formal priority for the agency right now. But NASA does feel that the data that ISEE-3 could generate would have real value and that a crowd funded effort such as ours has real value as an education and public outreach activity.
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Article here -
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/a...s/isee3-update
More about the project here -
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/we-are...pacecraft.html
Team twitter feed here -
https://twitter.com/isee3reboot
Space enthusiasts now in command of ISEE-3 cometary explorer spacecraft
