ISEE-3 Satellite Is Back Under Control 56
brindafella writes: "Over the last two days, the (Reboot Project for the International Sun/Earth Explorer 3 (ISEE-3) satellite has successfully commanded ISEE-3 from Earth, using signals transmitted from the Aricebo Observatory. Signals were also received by cooperating dishes: the 21-meter dish located at Kentucky's Morehead State University Space Science Center; the 20-meter dish antenna in Bochum Observatory, Germany, operated by AMSAT Germany; and SETI's Allen Telescope Array, California. ISEE-3 was launched in 1978, and last commanded in 1999 by NASA. On May 15, 2014, the project reached its crowdfunding goal of US$125,000, which will cover the costs of writing the software to communicate with the probe, searching through the NASA archives for the information needed to control the spacecraft, and buying time on the dish antennas. The project then set a 'stretch goal' of $150,000, which it also met with a final total of $159,502 raised. The goal is to be able to command the spacecraft to fire its engines to enter an Earth orbit, and then be usable for further space exploration. This satellite does not even have a computer; it is all 'hard-wired.'"
Arecibo Observatory (Score:3, Informative)
It's the Arecibo Observatory, not "Aricebo". Does it hurt to check the spelling?
Avoided moon impact as well (Score:5, Informative)
As a proud contributor to the ISEE-3 reboot project, I'd like to highlight that after communicating with the satellite, they discovered that the trajectory was over 200,000 km off where the predictions indicated it should be and its trajectory was specifically placing it in danger of impacting the moon. I would like to congratulate the ISEE-3 team on helping avoid a man-made impact with our moon.
(double post due to not being logged in)