Ask Team Trying To Return 36-Year-Old Spacecraft From Space About Their Project 53
samzenpus (5) writes "Last week we told you about a group that was trying to recover the 36-year-old ISEE-3 spacecraft from deep space. Led by CEO and founder of Skycorp, Dennis Wingo, and astrobiologist and editor of NASA Watch, Keith Cowing, the crowdfunded project plans to steer ISEE-3 back into an Earth orbit and return it to scientific operations. Once in orbit, they hope to turn the spacecraft and its instruments over to the public by creating an app that allows anyone access to its data. The team has agreed to take some time from lassoing spacecraft from deep space in order to answer your questions. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post. Hopefully the plan goes better than xkcd predicts."
Change name of company (Score:2, Funny)
Should be Skynet
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, Quark [wikipedia.org] is more appropriate. The only problem is who would play "the head?"
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a quark reference? Well done...well done.
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Re:Why wouldn't you focus on more productive thing (Score:4, Informative)
First: The purpose is not to retrieve it, but to reestablish comms and put it in orbit around the earth. It is currently in solar orbit, and the current orbit was planned so that such a capture would be feasible in the future, and that future is now.
Second: I think it would be really cool if one actually could bring it down to earth in one piece. There may also be some scientific insight to be gained from this - mainly how the probe has stood up to the environment of space, far outside the protection of Earth's magnetosphere.
Finally, it's a satellite, not a sentient being. It doesn't harbour any dreams of floating around in space forever, far from the oppressive commands of human engineers, basking in an infinite quietness only broken by periodic transmissions from it's tracking beacon. It's just a computer (or really, a sequencer), a really old one, which happens to be in space and connected to some instruments and a rocket engine. It wouldn't care if you took a dump on it's creaky old solar panels.
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Other than that, I think it's a really cool project. Also, as far as I understand, they plan to bring students into this, which is great - I don't think there are very many other opportunities for students to work hands-on with interplanetary probes such as this, and that alone is probably more than worth the effort even if it fails.
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Finally, it's a satellite, not a sentient being
V'ger scoffs at your anthropocentric notions.
Public Data Access (Score:3, Interesting)
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If the project is successful, how do you envision the public being able to access the data from the satellite? Will it be a stream of everything, or will only selected instruments be available?
Hi, this is Dennis Wingo, Co project manager of the project.
We envision the public being able to access the data through a web portal that will take the data in live and process it and show it to screens. IF there is enough interest and volunteers it will also be made available as a app. There is a great ham site (www.solarcycle24.com) that takes input from other satellites for the amateur radio community and we will do the same.
What is the value of this project? (Score:1)
So, if I understand this correctly, your group plans to bring ISEE-3 into LEO by using the satellite's own propulsion system to propel it into a stable orbit around the Earth via a trip around the Moon. What benefits does this offer to NASA, or to the scientific community at large, that isn't already offered by one or more existing satellites in LEO? I know you mentioned use as a "space weather" detector, but don't we have satellites up there already that can perform such a function?
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Second this question. If this is just duplicating information we already have, then it's nothing but a novelty project (and a job program for Skycorp).
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What benefits does this offer to NASA, or to the scientific community at large, that isn't already offered by one or more existing satellites in LEO?
TFA has something to say about this:
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.
This is like any NASA mission.. the person asking "what is the point of" is entitled to make their own value judgment regarding what is or is not worthwhile use of funds.
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How did you first hear about the ISEE-3 story?
Or by Star Trek [memory-alpha.org]?
How do we know this will even work? (Score:3, Interesting)
Another question I have is this: How do you know this project will even work? The XKCD comic claims that NASA sent a shutdown signal to ISEE-3 in 1998, which apparently was either not received or not properly executed. Is there any way of telling whether or not the control communications to the satellite even work anymore? What happens to the crowdfunding money if it is discovered that the comms equipment doesn't work, or that it's simply not feasible to build a system to emulate the original hardware controls in time to bring the satellite into Earth orbit?
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Hi this is Dennis Wingo, co project manager of the ISEE-3 Reboot project.
We already know that the spacecraft's two transponders are transmitting. This gives a very good indication that the power budget is positive. We also know, by looking just at the received signal that the spacecraft is still spinning at about the same rate as in 1999. We also know that the last time the spacecraft was contacted, that the vast majority of the instruments were still functional. The spacecraft is in a very stable orbit
Salvage-1 (Score:3)
I already saw 16 episodes of the 20 part documentary on the subject. :)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00... [imdb.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
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Another question - who owns it now? Are there any space equivelents to water based flotsam and jetsam?
If it's not in Earth orbit (Score:2)
What exactly is it doing?
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Nevermind. Another commenter mentions solar orbit.
What is the value? (Score:4, Interesting)
36 Year Old Misplaced Modifier (Score:2)
Slashdot (Score:2)
I know a lot of us waste large portions of our workday posting to Slashdot... but aren't you folks on kind of a time crunch?
Never tell me the odds! (Score:2)
OK, level with us. What do really you think the odds are of you succeeding in getting this craft into stable earth orbit?
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6. Send commands to fire engine.
What propels the spacecraft(please excuse my ignorance but then I am not a rocketeer) and how do we know that we have enough of the stuff to complete its manoeuvres? Also, what happens if the results of Step#5 do not turn out to be too positive. Do you have any alternate plans of using it for some other purpose...maybe crash-land it into the nearest planet/comet/moon while it keeps transmitting atmospheric measurements?
negative vibes (Score:3)
What can be gained? (Score:2)
Will you be selling media rights for this ? (Score:3)
Have you contacted any media organisations about selling the rights to film and publish this?
It might be a good way to get further funding for this work.
Lets use it for Bitcoin mining! (Score:2)