Connected to the spaceship

A group of scientists has officially contacted ISEE-3 again, the spacecraft has been inactive for 17 years after the US Aeronautics Agency (NASA) decided to grant child control. Ship for them.

In an official announcement, scientists in the ISEE-3 Reboot project confirmed that they had established a two-way connection with the 36-year-old ship that had been lost in the universe.

The connection with ISEE-3 was successful

The ISEE-3 spacecraft was introduced into space in 1978 with the task of studying the relationship between the Sun and the Earth. It was delivered quite a lot of tasks within the next 3 decades. However, NASA decided to cut off contact with ISEE-3 in 1997.

Until more than 10 years ago, NASA discovered that the ship continued to fly in its orbit without receiving any orders from NASA. Why not reconnect with the ship and give it a new mission? However, the problem is that the antenna used to connect to with ISEE-3 has been removed. Besides, in order to be able to make the connection, a huge budget is needed. Therefore, NASA decided to assign the task of connecting to the astronaut spacecraft to amateur scientists.

A group of scientists from SkyCorp, SpaceRef, Space College Foundation and many other groups of scientists have decided to accept this task.

To implement their project, the team of astronomers passionately organized a campaign to mobilize public capital from the community (crowdfunding). Initially, they set a goal of 100 thousand dollars. However, by the time the campaign ended, they had reached more than $ 150,000.

"Our plan is simple: We will contact the ISEE-3 spacecraft, control its engine to bring it close to orbit near the Earth, and then continue its original mission. " Keith Cowing, a former NASA engineer from the group of scientists said.

To be able to contact ISEE-3, the scientists were forced to rebuild the entire software used to connect to the ship from the 70s of the last century. That means they have to rummage through the huge archives, looking back to the original commands and then rebuilding them.

ISEE-3 Reboot Project

There was no support from NASA and there was only one to two months before ISEE-3 got closer to Earth's orbit this summer, scientists had to make a huge amount of work. giant However, they finally succeeded.

And this is important. What will they do next in the coming days when connecting with ISEE-3?

"In the near future, our team will make an assessment of the overall condition of the ship, refine the techniques needed to start its engine and bring it back to orbit near Earth , " a home The science belongs to the Reboot group.

The connection with ISEE-3 was done at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, where scientists collaborate with a global network of astronomers to fund and operate the project.