Success! We Are Now In Command of the ISEE-3 Spacecraft
Thanks to the many WUWT readers that contributed to make this a success! These guys didn’t disappoint. They pulled it off against the odds. Congratulations to them. There’s a great backstory coming related to the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” that I’ll share as soon as I get clearance. – Anthony
The ISEE-3 Reboot Project is pleased to announce that our team has established two-way communication with the ISEE-3 spacecraft and has begun commanding it to perform specific functions. Over the coming days and weeks our team will make an assessment of the spacecraft’s overall health and refine the techniques required to fire its engines and bring it back to an orbit near Earth.
First Contact with ISEE-3 was achieved at the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico. We would not have been able to achieve this effort without the gracious assistance provided by the entire staff at Arecibo. In addition to the staff at Arecibo, our team included simultaneous listening and analysis support by AMSAT-DL at the Bochum Observatory in Germany, the Space Science Center at Morehead State University in Kentucky, and the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array in California.
Of course this effort would not have been possible without the assistance of NASA and the Space Act Agreement crafted by NASA Headquarters, NASA Ames Research center, and the System Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI).
For further information on the ISEE-3 Reboot Project please visit our website at http://spacecollege.org/isee3 A much more detailed description of our First Contact efforts and future plans will be published on our website next week.
This. Is. AMAZING!!
Excellent work!
Fine work guys. Huge thumbs up.
Excellent!
Proof once again,,,,, you can herd cats 😉
Wow, it chokes me up. I went into studying engineering after Sputnik I. Graduated in geological/mining – hey I needed to make a living and am still at it. My view of the odds on this project were that they were low: too hurried by timing (bird location and fuel remaining for positioning) for successfully carrying out such a complex task on a technology that was so outdated. I am overwhelmed by this success – IMHO it exceeds the original success of putting the satellite up there. Thanks for the thrill of this and the restoration of faith in today’s
engineering/science. I hope it sparks some new interest in space. You must have a few other old timer satellites on your list. We can’t let these new skills go fallow.
Wow. Well done. To be completely honest I didn’t think it would be a success. It was just too much of a “long” shot 😉
A huge congrats to all involved.
Kiddies have a new toy to play with. Pathetic. Pick your disaster….The World Health Organization currently estimates that each year malaria causes 300 to 500 million infections and over 1 million deaths each year. Likely there are real problems affecting real people near or far from you who could use brains and treasure to help out.
This tickles my fancy more than I can say. Bravo!
Grow up and be a scientist, sez the science teacher!
[trimmed.]
[Cut the language .mod]
Never say never.
Dave Wendt says:
May 29, 2014 at 9:07 pm
+++++++++++++++++++++
wow, Dave that’s brilliant….
Dave Wendt says:
[trimmed]
Well, Dave, I assume Anthony Watts disapproves of your sophomoric acronyms.
Receiving data is good. Any data beats any model, any day. Hope it continues to go well!
Good time for an astrophysics-related joke:
High Times in Jolly Old England indeed.
Oh, and great job on the satellite!
Do you have any other resurrection candidates you wish to zombify under your command?
Cheers, mods.
[Thanx! ~mod]
Richard D says:
May 29, 2014 at 9:26 pm
Dave Wendt says:
[trimmed]
Well, Dave, I assume Anthony Watts disapproves of your sophomoric acronyms.
Being Intentionally Obnoxious Yields Animosity! and Go Forth Yowling!
You guys are just space dumpster divers, of the second kind.
What a gig you’ve gotten your hands on; and evidently a good deal of gas to do plenty of cruising.
Well have fun with your new toy, and give us a look at your scraps every now and then.
Some people just have too much fun, and a jolly good show too.
From ossqss on May 29, 2014 at 7:23 pm:
There are known methods of herding cats.
Private: Take a partially-emptied re-closed bag of dry cat food and slowly turn it around so it makes the sound of food being poured out, or perhaps play the sound of an electric can opener on an endless loop, and keep walking as the cats follow you along.
Government: Keep making loud noises that will make them run away in panic, and they will all go in the same direction following the guideline you painted on the ground as long as you keep making the scary noises, because you told them they must, as it will be for their own good.
Academic: Gather all the cats together. Convince them of the inherent relativism of the archaic patriarchal hierarchical term “herd” as clearly you can have a herd of one or an individual of many. Empower them to look within and discover an invigorated sense of self-worth that shall inform and energize their navigations through the murky passages of our repressive obsessive misogynist racist society. Then release them into the wilderness, content that in any direction one or more cats shall travel, they are being self-herded on their own unique path to self-defined greatness that they were set upon by YOU.
Clever are they to catch.
Spiralling delicately old man made space object .
Now then how when tech.
Great news that they have a response and getting data.
There are a couple of things I’d be interested to see from this project
1) are the instruments still working accurately (not sure how that can be verified unless they have onboard ‘standards’?). What is the drift observed in the instruments? Does that help in confirming any assumptions for modern satellite instrumentation?
2) are the instruments showing any significant changes from the early mission to today, for example, in solar energies? If so, are they correct? i.e. after any drift adjustment. does it correlate with ‘modern’ observations?
I haven’t read too much of the original mission findings, so not sure what could be achieved – but it strikes me this is a golden opportunity to actually verify and/or measure any instrumentation variance, etc.
Richard D says:
May 29, 2014 at 8:43 pm
Are you for real?
You assume first that this is a binary proposition of either help with the satellite or help with some “disaster”.
You assume that they have skills relevant to the issues you favour.
You assume that they are selfishly choosing not to apply those skills to the issues you favour.
And to cap it off you personally insult them.
…..Kiddies have a new toy to play with. Pathetic. Pick your disaster….The World Health Organization currently estimates that each year malaria causes 300 to 500 million infections and over 1 million deaths each year. Likely there are real problems affecting real people near or far from you who could use brains and treasure to help out.
Hmmm…. If fake science had not been used to vilify DDT, those deaths would not be happening.
There is a meme about fake science destroying the world I hear….
Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, from who I learned about ion propulsion, and who was one of the “Project Paperclip was once asked something similar to this as well”.
To cut to the chase, without investing in science, engineering, and technology, we would all still be eating food cooked on dung fires, and would have a lifespan of about 30 years. The biggest problem that our society has these days are the acts of well meaning but clueless do gooders who don’t understand science or technology but who put themselves into positions of power so that they can force those of us who do know what we are doing, to do stupid crap that will destroy rather than save civilization.
A very brief instance of this is associated with anthropogenic global warming. There is a very simple solution to it, if you think that CO2 is truly the problem. The massive and global implementation of nuclear power, from uranium, thorium, coupled with a crash program to develop fusion long term. Why are we not doing this? Because the clueless ones think that solar panels and wind turbines are sustainable, and that is all we need. If these people are allowed to force our society in that direction, I estimate six to six and a half billion dead.
Think about that.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Congrats to the citizen scientists. This effort should pay a wealth of dividends.
Been following this a long time and i applaud them. But to call them ‘citizen’ astronomers and engineers is a bit much. Mostly these people are the original team who put the initial project together. They just don’t get publicly funded any longer.
All they plan now is to return it to the original mission. Nobody expected it to survive its last mission which it was tasked with when considered at end of life.
@denniswingo I am over at Fort Buchanan, and am quite excited as well you all pulled this off, Congratulations!!
If you find you need anything you cannot find on the economy (It appears Cherry Coke is only at our commissary) let me know, I can drive over and drop of some things. Also if you are a HAM, there is Israel (KP4LCL) working in the control room there. You’ve probalby already met. He’s a true Radio Nerd and an avid photographer.
Best of luck with the rest of your mission! Truly outstanding stuff. What an amazing life that satellite has had and will continue to have.
Jim
KE5LNG
(You can contact me via the email at QRZ.com if needed)
I contributed to the crowd funding, not knowing whether anything would come out of it. Now I think the investment was indeed good! Well worth the money. Congratulations so far!