Civilians Try to Lure an Abandoned NASA Spacecraft Back to Earth 53
A New York Times piece (as carried by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) outlines a fascinating project operating in unlikely circumstances for a quixotic goal. They want to control, and return to earth, the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3, launched in 1978 but which "appears to be in good working order." Engineer Dennis Wingo, along with like minded folks (of whom he says "We call ourselves techno-archaeologists") has established a business called Skycorp that "has its offices in the McDonald's that used to serve the Navy's Moffett air station, 15 minutes northwest of San Jose, Calif. After the base closed, NASA converted it to a research campus for small technology companies, academia and nonprofits. ... The race to revive the craft, ISEE-3, began in earnest in April. At the end of May, using the Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Puerto Rico, the team succeeded in talking to the spacecraft, a moment Mr. Wingo described as "way cool." This made Skycorp the first private organization to command a spacecraft outside Earth orbit, he said.
The most disheartening part: "No one has the full operating manual anymore, and the fragments are sometimes contradictory." The most exciting? "Despite the obstacles, progress has been steady, and Mr. Wingo said the team should be ready to fire the engines within weeks."
Duh (Score:5, Informative)
This is old news to Slashdot readers. See http://tech.slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=ISEE+3
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I know how they do this!
First, get a bald chick from India, and that fat drunk girl, who replaced the annoying blonde on "Cheers"...
Then, amplify the sound of a garage-door spring being struck by a rubber mallet. It helps if you have an octave pedal, to shift this down.
You can take the rest from here.
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It WAS 1979....
summary is not accurate (Score:5, Informative)
Re:summary is not accurate (Score:5, Interesting)
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I believe that NASA has at least given permission to these guys to take control of the spacecraft if they can figure out how. Not entirely sure if ownership has been transferred.
Re:summary is not accurate (Score:5, Informative)
They signed an agreement:
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/... [spacecollege.org]
Re:summary is not accurate (Score:4, Informative)
NASA has given the approval to communicate and control it, so there's a partnership there (and probably a lot of goodwill to, since NASA isn't doing this because they couldn't find the funding for the project).
It would be a diplomatic incident if China did it without seeking approval, but again, it's unlikely anyone would care if it wasn't active disruption.
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It would be a diplomatic incident if China did it without seeking approval
China probably doesn't have the right password.
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"swordfish"
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Its all analog, from 1978, there is no security what so ever other than knowing how to send it commands and what commands.
Theres no CPU in it.
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Its all analog, from 1978, there is no security what so ever other than knowing how to send it commands and what commands.
Theres no CPU in it.
It's not all analog. It has a processor, just not what you would call a CPU.
P.S., I had a home computer in 1978, the world was not all analog.
Re:they're all terrorists! (Score:4, Funny)
Especially US space junk. For free, one may add!
Letting others use for free what you throw away... how Un-American!
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Except.... NASA is allowing it, so Im not really clear what yalls point is.
Re:they're all terrorists! (Score:5, Funny)
NASA is giving something away? For free?
THOSE COMMIES!
Hack (Score:4, Funny)
Someone read to much xkcd [xkcd.com], I see.
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What's the purpose of sending a shutdown signal to an abandoned probe? If it is abandoned, does it matter if you shut it down or not?
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What's the purpose of sending a shutdown signal to an abandoned probe? If it is abandoned, does it matter if you shut it down or not?
You have to do a clean shutdown or the memory isn't freed. If the probe were destroyed, that would be memory which could never, ever be allocated by anyone ever again.
It really starts to add up. A few thousand probes and you're talking hundreds of kilobytes.
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Perhaps to keep it from transmitting and interfering with radio astronomy?
Hey - a little red paint, some crash test dummies (Score:3)
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What did the Sun Explorer say when it was revived?
"O, Shiny!" : )
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You would want to attract Reavers because...?
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1997 was the age of glam rock and heavy metal, also rap was begining to make an impact, also plenty of electronic pop.
WTF? Glam rock was a 1970's phenomenon, heavy metal from about then too. And rap made its big impacts from the 1980's. What are you smoking?
paywalled article, not the current state (Score:5, Insightful)
Contact has already been made, this has been reported before and the article is 'continued' on a paywalled site.
Is this again the fault of that badly functioning firehose thingy, or some ill informed editor?
here is a much better informative link (Score:5, Informative)
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/ [spacecollege.org]
Salvage or Space Looting (Score:3)
Lure? (Score:1)
They're going to "lure" it back?
Can anyone explain how they plan to lure a spacecraft, or is this some sort of confusion caused by using google translate?
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It's called "hyperbole."
Also see "anthropomorphism."
Fun hack for nerds (Score:2)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Mostly in Deep Space Network tracking time. The Original mission to Halley's Comet was so far out, it never heard the command to cycle down all the instruments and since it was solar powered it simply kept transmitting waiting for new orders. (It was a "Long" wait..). NASA was so convinced they wouldn't be able to contact it.. time on the DSN wasn't even booked. After they contacted it the crowd source funding was used to "Purchase" precious time on the DNS to perform the Deep Space Location and Ranging ope
1978 (Score:3)
From TFA:
the Commodores topped the music charts with "Three Times a Lady"
If we can get Wingo an up to date location to target Justin Bieber, we might see yet another contribution to the arts.
as long as... (Score:2)
... it didn't meet and fuse with an alien probe of immense power designed to bring back sterilized soil samples, we're ok.
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Tom Baker and Colin Baker, respectively (Fourth and Sixth).
Civilians? (Score:2)
She had nice arches. (Score:1)
> in the McDonald's that used to serve the Navy's Moffett air station
The McDonald's attracted the military base, not the other way around.
The IEEE (Score:4, Interesting)
had a ton of papers written with the various commands in them.
I wonder why they can't put the manual together from those?
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n00bs (Score:2)
"No one has the full operating manual anymore, and the fragments are sometimes contradictory."
Haven't these guys ever RTFM'd before?