NASA Forgets How To Talk To ICE/ISEE-3 Spacecraft

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Randall Munroe's XKCD cartoon on the ICE/ISEE-3 spacecraft inspired me to do a little research on why Nasa can no long communicate with the International Cometary Explorer. Launched in 1978 ISEE-3 was the first spacecraft to be placed in a halo orbit at one of Earth-Sun Lagrangian points (L1). It was later (as ICE) sent to visit Comet Giacobini-Zinner and became the first spacecraft to do so by flying through a comet's tail passing the nucleus at a distance of approximately 7800 km. ICE has been in a heliocentric orbit since then, traveling just slightly faster than Earth and it's finally catching up to us from behind, and will return to Earth in August. According to Emily Lakdawalla, it's still functioning, broadcasting a carrier signal that the Deep Space Network successfully detected in 2008 and twelve of its 13 instruments were working when we last checked on its condition, sometime prior to 1999.

Can we tell the spacecraft to turn back on its thrusters and science instruments after decades of silence and perform the intricate ballet needed to send it back to where it can again monitor the Sun? Unfortunately the answer to that question appears to be no. 'The transmitters of the Deep Space Network, the hardware to send signals out to the fleet of NASA spacecraft in deep space, no longer includes the equipment needed to talk to ISEE-3. These old-fashioned transmitters were removed in 1999.' Could new transmitters be built? Yes, but it would be at a price no one is willing to spend. 'So ISEE-3 will pass by us, ready to talk with us, but in the 30 years since it departed Earth we've lost the ability to speak its language,' concludes Lakdawalla. 'I wonder if ham radio operators will be able to pick up its carrier signal — it's meaningless, I guess, but it feels like an honorable thing to do, a kind of salute to the venerable ship as it passes by.'"

Comments

Why so expensive?

[X0563511]

SDR is a thing, and it's not that expensive these days.

The expensive part would be the amplifiers and antennas, and those just spew the signal you feed to them. Generating the signal is cheap.

Re:Why so expensive?

[nospam007]

This is a government agency, they don't do cheap, they don't know how.

Re:Why so expensive?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This is a government agency, they don't do cheap, they don't know how.

Yes; but it's also a government agency that probably has a few geeks on payroll. As an official project, there probably isn't even time to circulate the RFPs and cut the POs. As a hobby project, it's much more likely that somebody just needs to look the other way as whatever signalling gear can hit the right frequency sees a little after-hours misuse.

Re:Why so expensive?

[rmdingler]

Yes. And.

This is a systemic problem perpetuated by the companies who bid for government contracts.

Jobs bid and completed outside the influence of government (and perhaps organized crime... but I repeat myself) are not associated with cost overruns on every single project.

Re:Why so expensive?

[geogob]

Of course they know how. But they are not allowed to... or more accurately they do not allow themselves to do cheap.

But that is the first part of the price equation... equally strong is the polical part. A lot of decision are based on politcal decision rather than engineering choices or, even, common sense. Those decision often drive the prices to new hights.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Joce640k]

I suspect the point of the cartoon was a thing called "crowdfunding"

(And to draw attention to the approaching window for actually doing something...)

Re:Why so expensive?

[TrentTheThief]

Since when is NASA a big daddy defense contractor? This is a task they could manage in-house with the resources they already have on hand.

The original hardware is missing, sure. But that's no big deal. RF is RF. They can use a Software Defined Radio (SDR) and throw together a program to parse the telemetry into something meaningful. After all, the only thing disposed of was the hardware. The specifications for everything else is on file.

All they need is some support instead of more snarky remarks. Sure, NASA kinda fucked up when the hardware was trashed, but hardware that's been idle for 15-20 years looks like it's only collecting dust (which it was). But who actually knew it was still needed? That is plenty long enough for the engineers who once used it to move on to other employers or to simply grow old enough to reach retirement and leave.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Noryungi]

The HAM are already on it, bless their souls:

http://ww2.amsat.org/amsat/arc...

If they can make it (meaning: at the very least being able to get the carrier), it will be a hack of historic proportions.

Re:Why so expensive?

[yesterdaystomorrow]

Here's how it works.

In the NASA system, the first thing any project needs is a cost estimate from the bean counters. They employ a vast amount of historical data to estimate costs. To get project approval, you must promise to spend that much money: if you don't, NASA management will assume you don't understand the difficulty, and will fail. Then, of course, you must actually build a project organization with a staff capable of spending the money.

This can go wrong rather badly. If the project is actually a lot easier than the bean counters assumed, you have now set yourself up for a massive overrun. Squander is harder to manage than lean development. But when you overrun, the data is duly entered in the bean counters' database, and the next similar project has to come up with even more money.

Communications may be the area where costing is the farthest from the real state of the art.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

But, by time they worked up a contract,for a low cost "space company only bidder" got approval, got funding, got the contractor to some office space, they may as well give it to the boy scouts to play with. That would be 5 years down the line with the way congress works, but, if the boy scouts got hold of it, would they let it land in WDC?

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is NASA a big daddy defense contractor?

They aren't, and that's the point. NASA receives a small fraction of the budget, while big daddy defense contractors receive a lot.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of time it would take someone on staff to read through the specification without implementing it would probably cost them more than they want to spend on it, let alone the time of someone to actually implement and double check a program to generate and receive appropriate signals. Maybe if they had planned ahead and had the nearly free labor of undergrads doing summer research projects work on it, they could have had something up. Although all too often grants and such are kind of narrow about what you can spend money and time on, leaving a lot of interesting side work to be done after hours assuming people involved have the time and energy. That goes doubly so when it comes down to just doing something for coolness or "honorable" type work, and the potential science outcome is limited.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA is a purchasing organization run by scientists whose first priority is satiating scientific interest, even if the interest is only tangentially related to the overarching mission. They are not very worried about schedule or cost; that's the thing about a purchasing orgainzation. NASA goes to a company like ATK* and says, "We need rockets, and we like this design and want you to incorporate this stuff in your design. Then we want to know everything about how you make it and why you make the design choices you do."

Then, ATK makes some rockets and incorporating the new materials is difficult. NASA has a bunch of questions about new corrosion problems or rubber chemistry and since NASA is a sciency purchasing orgainzation and ATK wants to be a production organization there is some mismatch in mission. NASA as the customer requires their tangential questions to be answered, and ATK acquesces. Both organizations learn a lot about the systems. From a Science perspective, vast sums about chemistry and materials compatibility have been added to the human knowledge base. From a Production standpoint, a lot of engineers were sidetracked on tangent projects, causing schedule slips when a change to a known material might have been more expedient or less expensive. At the same time, the ATK engineers learn a lot about the tertiary effects of making primary design choices, and the quality of the products improves.

It is the difference in missions (science vs production) between NASA and the parts supplier that cause the high price of fancy rockets, not that someone at NASA spends too much or that the contractor charges too much. People who assert otherwise don't understand the complex customer relations and product requirements between government (or private) agencies on REALLY BIG projects and purchasing contracts.

*can substitute ATK for any big contractor

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...is a thing"? What are you, twelve years old?

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this was the 1950s or 1960s America, some university post-grads would scrounge up the hardware and cobble together the software and GET IT DONE.

We no longer live in that America.

We're weenies.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Mitchell314]

They do know cheap. And they know cheap gets you Apollo 1 do-overs.

Re:Why so expensive?

[bigpat]

Yes; but it's also a government agency that probably has a few geeks on payroll. As an official project, there probably isn't even time to circulate the RFPs and cut the POs. As a hobby project, it's much more likely that somebody just needs to look the other way as whatever signalling gear can hit the right frequency sees a little after-hours misuse.

Just exactly what I was thinking. If there are still some useful instruments on this spacecraft, then could a bunch of volunteers come together under a University or non-profit to put together a transmitter and mission plan by August?

Most people in the space exploration business get one or two shots at a mission like this in their lives, so I think some mix of people that worked on this originally, some university students and some geekend warriors might be willing to pull it together.

Seems that NASA would just have to designate someone to be in charge and hand over the documentation to increase the odds of success over someone just making this a hobby project on the DL, but then it would be a matter of getting a relatively small team of expert volunteers together and matching them up with some time on a big enough transmitter to actually get a signal to the spacecraft.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Baloroth]

SDR is a thing, and it's not that expensive these days.

The expensive part would be the amplifiers and antennas, and those just spew the signal you feed to them. Generating the signal is cheap.

I suspect the issue is more "why?" Why would they bother spending even a few thousand dollars on a satellite that was supposed to have been shut down 15 years ago and for which they (quite clearly) have no more use? And it would cost money, if only the time they spend using the amplifiers/antennas. Considering that the DSN communications system already has to support multiple missions, adding one extra that serves no useful function is a complete waste of resources.

Re:Why so expensive?

[porcinist]

Yes, can someone explain WHY this is so expensive? It is distinctly possible that there is something I don't know about, but an SDR system under 2k. I'm sure it isn't the dish. Does it need some kind of insane amp that nobody has anymore and we can't rebuild? I can accept there is a reason it is expensive and that I don't know about, but I haven't seen an explanation yet. Hell, if there was a reasonable plan to build a system to talk to the spacecraft, I'd put in a few thousand to talk to talk to the spacecraft.

Re:Why so expensive?

[bigpat]

There are also procedures for surplussing government property. And other ways that someone at NASA could spend a few hours, put together an RFP for some University, non-profit or other outside entity to put together a mission plan to reestablish communications, control and make some use of the space craft. Maybe it is really just redundant given much better instruments on other probes, but there is still likely some value that some University researchers could utilize. Heck sounds like it could be a pretty cool project to unleash team of University students and mostly volunteers on.

Re:Why so expensive?

[ColdWetDog]

If this was the 1950s or 1960s America, some university post-grads would scrounge up the hardware and cobble together the software and GET IT DONE.

We no longer live in that America.

We're weenies.

A subscription to this magazineought to make you deliriously happy.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this was the 1950s or 1960s America, some university post-grads would scrounge up the hardware and cobble together the software and GET IT DONE.

This still describes experimentalists in physics graduate school even just as recent as five years ago. There is a substantial amount of work that gets done because someone kept old equipment in an overflowing closet or former lab somewhere, and the most important person is the one or two people in the department that actually know where to look for things. At the last university I worked at, I would guess at least half of the students had a critical part in their experiment that was more than twice their age, and nearly all had used or had around such parts. That said, when trying to cobble things together for actual work and science results, you sometimes run out of time to do it for random cool but less fruitful things, or get distracted because you're busy trying to cobble things together to shrink quarters or see who can make the biggest arc, etc., instead of trying to communicate with an old satellite.

Re:Why so expensive?

[McFly777]

Not to diss the listening effort, but what would really be cool would be if the hams figured out how to speak to it, and do what NASA seemingly can't: fix it's orbit.

Re:Why so expensive?

[X0563511]

I really can't think of a technical reason - the only things that come to mind are political in nature (eg protocol licensing) or other such BS.

HAMs bounce signals off of the freakin' moon's surface with only a few hundred dollars worth of equipment. The only way "expensive" comes in here is if there's some hairbrained software patent in the way?

Re:Why so expensive?

[porcinist]

I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. I'll put in 5k if someone can come up with a reasonable plan to talk with this spacecraft. You can find my contact info on my website http://ww.vxmdesign.com/contac... Email me if you have a detailed (hardware, software work) plan, or you want to up the bounty...

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me this, why do people still code on Commodore 64s? I thought this was /.!

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA is bound by the Federal Acquisition Regulations, which create the system that forces defense contractors to bill more for program management than engineering, and more for systems engineering than programming, and more for programmers to do requirements decomposition than programming, and nobody to do testing until the end. Sorry, it's federal law. I suggest fixing it by patching on more layers of administration to ensure that we can't do someting wrong, poorly or unethically. Right now it takes 2 years to get anything on contract. I'm sure more regulation will help.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, can someone explain WHY this is so expensive? I'm sure it isn't the dish.

Why are you so sure it isn't? This thing isn't in orbit around the Earth. You need a huge dish. HUGE. Time on the Deep Space Network is very expensive and in high demand. Other missions which are actually providing some scientific value and would lose time. If someone could come up with a reason to talk to this thing beyond "It looks fun", I'm sure they could make the case and get time.

Re:Why so expensive?

[geogob]

I find your view somewhat naive. I've been involved in multiple space projects (some very big ones), although never with NASA. But through my interactions with NASA and JPL scientists and engineer, I doubt that the situation there is any different than the one with the agencies I work with.

We are speaking of purchasing organizations run by politicians. Not scientists. How often have I seen scientists and engineer sake their heads on the attribution of a contract or selection of a mission? I stopped counting when I ran out of fingers to count on.

The attribution of the contracts is highly dependent on geographical distribution rather than on expertise. The selection of wrong contractors, based on geopolitical motive, costs years in delays and millions in over costs. It magnitude over the interaction you describe. If only that was the only source of higher costs...
The selection of the projects or mission that get financing is even worse. It became a real political farce, and is undermined by political marketing (eg. what sells well to the people financing the agencies) and by the true role of these agencies: financing the aerospace industry.

I would answer in short that people who assert things like you do haven't been in the business long enough or have been doing so with their eyes and ears closed. What you describe is entirely correct, but accounts only for a minute fraction of the cause of the high costs found in the space industry.

Re:Why so expensive?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'd think that, especially if there isn't anything too esoteric about the original communication mechanism, suitably motivated people could probably bang out (especially if some documentation still exists) an SDR implementation (at negligible power, obviously) for a few tens of thousands, tops, worth of hardware. The component you'd probably have to beg, borrow, or steal would be a suitably punchy transmitter and a suitably capable receiver to plug that into.

Re:Why so expensive?

[porcinist]

Ok. What band it is on? What is it's signal strength? What size dish does that require given modern radio technology? Just because it is in a heliocentric orbit doesn't mean it is far away. The whole point is that it is close enough right now where we are picking up its carrier signal. From what I can tell from what I've read, they've just lost the ability to translate it. I don't have the report from NASA so I don't know what they did, and I'm not inclined to "just take their word". I'm certain some amateurs could pull it off with a little bit of hardware and some documentation.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

"fix it's orbit."

"fix it is orbit." What??? That is what you wrote. Maybe you should learn how to use that fucking apostrophe. Which includes when NOT to.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

- It is getting *time on the dish* - there's an opportunity cost to all other currently funded projects that use the dish. Basically take the project implications of delaying their already scheduled time on the dish such as salaries and downstream schedule pushes and deadlines over the budget cycle. Pushing a major schedule milestone into a new fiscal year could easily result in losing the funds - that's how government funding works.

- It is getting the right transmitter and amplifier - it's NOT trivial; easily 10s of thousands of $ for cost-of-goods, and 100s of thousands for the technical talent required to pay salaries for design, manufacture, testing, tuning and installation into the dish system - not even your average EE can tackle this unless they have specific RF/W design/application experience.

So then balance this against what is actually gained by communicating with this long obsolete, terminated mission. Basically there is nothing within mission to be gained. There is nothing proposed by anyone (NASA or external) for what a "new mission" would accomplish. There very well be nothing to be marginally gained at all. Thus there is expense with no defined or realizable benefit - it would be crazy stupid to do anything to move forward.

At best, maybe a non-NASA effort could be started but realistic the technical capabilities simply aren't available even among Hams. The antenna gain, transmitter power and receiver sensitivity required is almost certainly well beyond anything a private, volunteer effort could achieve. It's NOT just a matter of putting up some C-band TV dishes up and hacking a signal!! It's not some Hollywood movie BS required for this - it's real hardcore engineering on a decent budget required.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that the awarding of contracts is very highly political, and is often based on distributing money to so and so's district or state. And this is super wasteful.

However, once a contract is awarded, the management of the project is somewhat less political, and the contractors have a team of vice presidents whose job it is to "keep the program sold" at the highest level. After contract award at the funding agency level (NASA, AF, NAVY, etc.) the project is scrutinized more technically, and funding agencies' scientists have a lot of sway over what pieces of the project warrent more investigation. These scientists report to their political program managers and those managers talk to the contractor management, and mission objectives get changed, and , and, profit.

Yeah it is a complex problem that has no solution in the current political climate.

I think the highest costs in the space/NASA realm stem from the fact that NASA does not have a constant, long term technical mission (ie send man to Mars and bring him back alive). Flailing about with missions and projects, spending billions over here and over there and over there on redundant projects and then cancelling some of them about when they are mature and then changing focus to this thing that doesn't have a clearly defined mission but lots of capability is the biggest waste. Way bigger than the geopolitical allocation of contracts. All that mission indecision is Executive apointee and Congressionally driven. And you are right that the agency scientists have little to do with that part.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is NASA a big daddy defense contractor? This is a task they could manage in-house with the resources they already have on hand.

The original hardware is missing, sure. But that's no big deal. RF is RF. They can use a Software Defined Radio (SDR) and throw together a program to parse the telemetry into something meaningful. After all, the only thing disposed of was the hardware. The specifications for everything else is on file.

All they need is some support instead of more snarky remarks. Sure, NASA kinda fucked up when the hardware was trashed, but hardware that's been idle for 15-20 years looks like it's only collecting dust (which it was). But who actually knew it was still needed? That is plenty long enough for the engineers who once used it to move on to other employers or to simply grow old enough to reach retirement and leave.

Are we sure it's on file? Remember, NASA is the agency that shredded all the engineering documents for the Saturn V.

Voyager 6

[Anonymous Coward]

Someday voyager 6 will destroy us

Re: Voyager 6

[Anonymous Coward]

That's Veja you clout!

Re:Voyager 6

[Anonymous Coward]

Someday voyager 6 will destroy us

V'Ger not Voyager 6. Turn in your nerd credentials.

Re:Voyager 6

[SJHillman]

How about we just call it "The V'Ger formerly known as Voyager 6"?

Re: Voyager 6

[rickb928]

How about we stick to the script. Or you make your own reality. And not on my lawn.

1337 issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone else notice the XKCD issue's number is 1337?

Re: 1337 issue

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the point.

Re:1337 issue

[geogob]

wooooosh, makes the shooting star.

Re: 1337 issue

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the point.

The point then was for someone more observant than me - (#46395521) - to point it out. Else I wouldn't have noticed. Of course, typically, points are made a little more explicitly or pointedly making (#46395521) helpful, and you, not so much.

Re:1337 issue

[Macgrrl]

Hack the Planet!

Re:1337 issue

[LM-Els]

Yes, I did. Wonder if they were aware themselves?

It's The Same Old Story

[avgjoe62]

Like in any relationship, thing are always changing. One partner moves a little further away, the other becomes disinterested and soon one of them just doesn't understand the other.

I would suggest couple's therapy.

Re:It's The Same Old Story

[14erCleaner]

Kind of like the Slashdot staff and the "Most Discussed" sidebar. Anybody notice that it hasn't changed in a week?

Re:It's The Same Old Story

[Elbelow]

Kind of like the Slashdot staff and the "Most Discussed" sidebar. Anybody notice that it hasn't changed in a week?

As far as I can tell, none of the slashboxes has updated in two weeks. Must be a beta thing.

Re:It's The Same Old Story

[Exeunter]

And like many a terminated relationship, one partner comes back wanting to resume relations again, but it looks like the other is just going to ignore her communications. She'll move on for now, but mark my words, she'll come back again and again. Ignore her pleas, don't reply to her - in fact, unfriend her on the Deep Space Network.

They didn't "forget"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't the editors change the title?

Re:They didn't "forget"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. It's more like they lost the punchcards.

Re:They didn't "forget"

[Anonymous Coward]

The editors have forgotten about this article. Once a editor posts, the article moves into the past, which is a mysterious place outside of time and space. Such a system allows them to duplicate post about this same topic tomorrow and then again next month.

Re:They didn't "forget"

[redneckmother]

Nope. It's more like they lost the punchcards.

Nah, it's just in a Word 95 .doc file.

Re:They didn't "forget"

[egcagrac0]

At that vintage, Wordstar is more likely.

Re:They didn't "forget"

[DarwinSurvivor]

The editors have forgotten about this article. Once a editor posts, the article moves into the past, which is a mysterious place outside of time and space. Such a system allows them to duplicate post about this same topic tomorrow and then again next month.

You do know how time works right...?

Disturbing, heartwrenching and yet exhilarating.

[Anonymous Coward]

It invokes in me a strange emotion to ponder the fact that there are now potential targets of archaeology in "deep space" and that those archaeological artifacts are older than I am.

What a coincidence!?

[JigJag]

did you see that the XKCD referred in the summary is 1337? Elite in leetspeak. My bet is it's not coincidence at all.

Re:What a coincidence!?

[Noryungi]

I believe it is a coincidence, but Randall milked it for all it is worth. Obligatory reference to Hackers and all.

The amazing thing is that he has been able to weave this into a funny cartoon about a real thing.

Re:What a coincidence!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Randall milked it for all it is worth.

Yeah, possums don't give a fuck.

Do the only decent thing...

[selectspec]

...and shoot it down.

HAM

[repetty]

The answer to this is obvious: Contract with a HAM radio club or some group associated with the American Radio Relay League to do it.

Re:HAM

[spiritplumber]

Given that the marginal cost to do so is basically zero, I have to wonder why not.

Re:HAM

[wonkey_monkey]

To do what, exactly?

Re:HAM

[Megane]

Reading some threads about it yesterday, I found that some hams in Germany have priority access to a 20m dish. Woah.

Re:HAM

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the ham-radio solution, and you will learn why it is so cheap.

Re:HAM

[LongearedBat]

A 20m plate of pork?!? Will need barrels of German brew to wash it down with.

Re:HAM

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer to this is obvious: Contract with a HAM radio club or some group associated with the American Radio Relay League to do it.

If HAM clubs have deep space transceivers capable of sending a signal and receiving a response across half a billion miles nowadays, the amateur radio scene is healthier than everyone thought.

Re:HAM

[bughunter]

HAM sounds like the way to go, along with a Kickstarter campaign to raise any necessary funds for custom equipment.

Re:HAM

[Anonymous Coward]

HAM clubs regularly do Earth-Moon bounces, receiving signals they bounce off the moon. The probe on its close approach will be coming near the moon, returning to the a similar point to its orbit as where it used the moon to sling shot into heliocentric orbit. At least it wouldn't involve bouncing a signal off a rock and going twice the distance un-amplified...

april is next month?

[Anonymous Coward]

beta or not this is hilarious : )
I recommend saving some of the carrier wave to *doc format and then trying to open it word : )

Open Source it

[EmperorOfCanada]

Why not publish many of the specifications so that hackers can cobble together a mission control and then make something happen? I suspect that if you put out an application that you would get 1,000,000 engineers who would drop what they are doing to help out for free. Literally you would get 1,000,000 engineers.

Re:Open Source it

[JoeMerchant]

If there's any kind of "little black box" on that vehicle that uses any kind of "secure" communication protocols, even from 30 years ago, the time and effort required to publish a functional, redacted communication protocol will cost far more than the balance of the mission calculations, communication hardware, etc.

Re:Open Source it

[bigpat]

As much as I agree with the idea of open sourcing it...NASA would need to limit this to just one team and one mission. Otherwise you get multiple different teams sending commands to a satellite which would confuse the heck out of it.

If NASA can't do something with the satellite, then it should just hand the keys off to a University or other non-profit that has a shot to pull something together by August.

Re:Open Source it

[BigT]

Why not have multiple groups controlling? It eventually worked out for Twitch Plays Pokemon.

Re:Open Source it

[TangoMargarine]

I think a million is being grossly overoptimistic. Maybe several thousand.

For comparison, there were 1,316 kernel devs involved in Linux 3.2.

http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/...

Re:Open Source it

[TangoMargarine]

Well if we take that software development observation into account, "More workers make the project take longer," we'd basically be in a race with the heat death of the universe for the project finishing if there were a million people involved.

Re:Open Source it

[EmperorOfCanada]

I was mentally including the engineering types such as ham radio nuts who, might not have a degree, have serious skills in antennas and whatnot.

Re:Open Source it

[DarwinSurvivor]

From what I read of the article (last month, thanks slashdot), the frequencies it uses are in very restricted bands and would require a very expensive government license to even be allowed to broadcast.

They would have to take budget from somewhere else

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't want any taxes, so the NASA budget is cut heavily, and here you want them to spend money from a heavily cut budget to talk to a platform that we've already spent the budget for to do something you're not quite sure is wanted doing?

Facebook Link?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is a Facebook page a legitimate news source?

Re:They would have to take budget from somewhere e

[armanox]

The amount of the budget that NASA takes up our taxes wouldn't notice if they disappeared..

Re:Disturbing, heartwrenching and yet exhilarating

[Anonymous Coward]

Most atoms in the universe are billions of years old. They're in you now. What emotion does that evoke (not invoke BTW)?

What, exactly, is missing?

[dtmos]

Is it the entire 2 GHz transmitter that is missing? Just the power amplifier? Just the PCM modulator? The feed for the 70m dish?

What, exactly, is missing?

Re:What, exactly, is missing?

[hackertourist]

What's missing is a filter in the receiver circuits.
You've got a transmitter and a receiver connected to the same antenna. When you're using the (powerful) transmitter, you need to make sure its signals don't end up in the (very sensitive) receiver and fry it.
This filter has to provide something like 150 dB of isolation.

WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

Who built that thing? Its been puttering about in space, outside of our planets protective magnetic field for 36 years and its still almost fully functional? Some of the satellites/probes these days don't last 2 years let alone 36, give those people a big pat on the back and at least a consultation job on current satellite/probe projects.

Re:WOW

[bobbied]

Who built that thing? Its been puttering about in space, outside of our planets protective magnetic field for 36 years and its still almost fully functional?

Problem is we really *don't* know how much is functional beyond the beacon used to track it. As I understand it there is very little (if any) telemetry data coming from the thing. Because we cannot talk to it, we cannot ask it any questions or reprogram it. My guess is that there is very little chance that much of value works, or NASA would have kept the equipment needed to communicate with it.

SDR - Software defined radio

[strangeattraction]

Fortunately there is a solution. Software defined radio. If that were to deployed SDR as part of the communications network we would be able to talk to old equipment.

Re:SDR - Software defined radio

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. Where can I download the software for talking to ICE/ISEE-3 ?!?

Re:SDR - Software defined radio

[bobbied]

From a dial up bulletin board that went down in 1997. Maybe you should try asking on FIDONET if the SysOp can put the system back up for you... (Assuming you still have a modem and a phone line. )

Obligatory xkcd

[troon]

http://xkcd.com/1337/

Oh, wait...

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[rickb928]

Typically liberal fallacy. You claim, because I want lower taxes, that I want NO taxes. Wrong. I want necessary taxes, minimum waste, minimum government intrusion where it should not intrude.

Hey, I would support NASA spending the money, if only for the scientific exercise of figuring this out. Though they may want to enlist the ham community to help - maybe help design a SDR?

just wait

[slashmydots]

Just wait until the prove discovers that not only did communication stop for no reason but the planet was taken over my talking apes!

Makes Seti Seem Silly

[Anonymous Coward]

So we can't communicate with our own spacecraft, but we think we'll be able to talk to aliens?

Coming soon ... TwitchPlaysICE/ISEE-3

[Anonymous Coward]

With independent groups of ham people working on it, it's hopefully just a matter of time until one or more succeed to communicate with the probe. Question is, whose control commands will be processed (is the probe currently in Democracy or Anarchy mode? ;) )

what's the frequency, Kenneth?

[swschrad]

and the mode of 256 bit encoding? might be able to whack some sense into a little program and PSK the thing. "2 GHz" is a little vague.

I think they could get some 8-foot dishes, 2-axis rotors, and put a backyard array of 8 or 12 antennas together for less than the cost of a fleet car. repurpose some microwave test equipment from one of their labs, and slap together a ham-worthy hack within a month. good project for the mossy Valued Fellows and a few interns, keep them out of the beancounters' way.

Re:what's the frequency, Kenneth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some good info: http://mdkenny.customer.netspace.net.au/ISEE-3.pdf/

Re:what's the frequency, Kenneth?

[bughunter]

That's a Ten-404, good buddy.

Re:what's the frequency, Kenneth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct link: http://mdkenny.customer.netspa...

isn't this the plot of the first Star Trek movie?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we just send someone up there to manually enter the codes? And does he really *have* to pass through the galactic anus first?

Never even estimated the cost

[leandrod]

What fazed me is ðey never even estimated ðe costs

Re:Never even estimated the cost

[Anonymous Coward]

I presume that's because someone in NASA estimated the costs of estimating the costs and decided it wasn't worth it.

Re:Never even estimated the cost

[bughunter]

You meant that as a joke, but I've seen that happen...

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[Curunir_wolf]

Typically liberal fallacy. You claim, because I want lower taxes, that I want NO taxes. Wrong. I want necessary taxes, minimum waste, minimum government intrusion where it should not intrude.

Excellent, so you agree then we should pull all our troops out of Afghanistan, ASAP, as well as getting our mitts out of Somalia, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Ukraine, etc? We shouldn't be intruding in other people's business, should we? We could easily close 500+ military bases and just, well... stop intruding in other people's business around the world, let them figure it out for themselves.

Sounds like a good start to me. But that's not what the elitist pricks in Washington typically do. Defense contractors are their wealthy friends, while soldiers and sailors are powerless fodder. So they would just shift the money around, cut the VA first, military pensions and salaries next (oh, wait .. they've already started that), make sure that Lockeed and Boeing keep making jets and Northrop Grumman keeps making ships, and continue racking up as much debt as they do now.

Wait, wait . .. .

[Anonymous Coward]

What if we establish communications and find found it calls itself IC'/IS'E-3 now.

Ultimate hobbyist project?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be cool if a group of amateur enthusiasts got together to communicate with it?

Now, let's take a giant leap of logic - that the communication protocol might be released by NASA. That would drastically cut down on reverse engineering, which you probably can't easily do on a flying bird. From there, this becomes a matter of building some fairly straightforward radio equipment. Modern software radios could drastically speed up the implementation process.

What would NASA say to it?

[tomhath]

It's nice that the spacecraft is still functioning after all these years. But given the orbit it's in and the antiquated instruments it has on board, is there really any reason to establish communication with it? NASA seems to consider it another piece of space junk.

Re:What would NASA say to it?

[Anonymous Coward]

This: "It may be possible to capture the spacecraft in 2014, when it again makes a close approach to Earth. If the craft is recovered, it has already been donated by NASA to the Smithsonian Institution."

Re:What would NASA say to it?

[pz]

The cost of launching anything is staggering, and it gets more stupendously staggering with the size of the orbit. Each probe is important. We are nowhere near having so much data about our solar system -- forget the universe as a whole -- that any single operating probe should be considered junk.

Re:What would NASA say to it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Diminishing returns. After a certain point the information you are getting isn't worth the amount of effort or its just the same information you already have. The instruments on board were built to 1978 specs and were built to measure things that needed measuring at that time, we already have those measurements now and need to measure something completely different.

Re:What would NASA say to it?

[pz]

So because they are no longer new, we should abandon the Mars Rovers, Cassini, the Viking probes, and other projects just because they are beyond their mission lifetime?

We should stop measuring lunar albedo just because it's always the same? We should stop the pitch drop experiment? We shouldn't have measured the cosmic background radiation to look for spatial variations? We shouldn't have measured continental drift because it can't possibly happen and mountains don't move? Just because something appears static (and without comparing against previous measurements, we have no means for verifying that), does not mean it isn't changing over longer time scales that are still very important.

I'll repeat my thesis: we are so data-poor about the solar system that the feed from any single working probe is vital. The cost of receiving data is trivial compared to the cost of construction and launch.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Typically liberal fallacy. You claim, because I want lower taxes, that I want NO taxes. Wrong. I want necessary taxes, minimum waste, minimum government intrusion where it should not intrude.

Excellent, so you agree then we should pull all our troops out of Afghanistan, ASAP, as well as getting our mitts out of Somalia, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Ukraine, etc? We shouldn't be intruding in other people's business, should we? We could easily close 500+ military bases and just, well... stop intruding in other people's business around the world, let them figure it out for themselves.

Be careful with your flames.

Your series of overblown giant straw men is downright dangerous.

They didn't "forget" how to talk to it!

[ruiner13]

They lost the ability to talk to it, they didn't forget how to. They lack the equipment to do it, but they know how to build it, they just don't have the funding and/or desire to do so. Small difference, but your version of the headline sure is sensationalist! What happened to this site?

Re:They didn't "forget" how to talk to it!

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened to this site? You must be new here ... wait ... no you've been here for some time... Guess you've just not been paying attention! Sensational is the norm with headlines

Re:They didn't "forget" how to talk to it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they did "forget". In much the same way you've forgotten 90% of the things you "learned" in high school.

I work in an institute for particle physics and we only recently shut down one of our old accelerators from the 70s. We cannot turn it back on again. Even if we wanted to. As all the engineers, physicists, and operators who designed, built and maintained that machine are either dead or retired. The plans are in storage, but God help the poor soul who has to try and find the most relevant schematics, which will, in turn, omit any small modifications made to the machine since its inception. Not to mention the antiquated source code, hardware requirements, etc.

It is easier to gut the machine and rebuild it from scratch than turn it on again.

Re:They didn't "forget" how to talk to it!

[Keybounce]

We cannot turn it back on again. Even if we wanted to. As all the engineers, physicists, and operators who designed, built and maintained that machine are either dead or retired. ...

It is easier to gut the machine and rebuild it from scratch than turn it on again.

Alright, I am curious. What, exactly, stops you from flipping the switch back to "on"?

Yes, I am ignorant. But it's a serious question.

It was running, right? So you know that it works.

So,
1. What is so hard about starting it up, and
2. If you knew you could not turn it back on after turning it off, why turn it off?

Re:They would have to take budget from somewhere e

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Agreed. In 2013, NASA's budget of 17.8 billion dollars made up one half of one percent of the total US budget of about 3.8 trillion dollars. Rounding to the nearest integer, the largest chunk of the budget pie (the Department of Health and Human Services) had a budget 53 times as large as NASA. The Social Security Administration? 50 times. The Department of Defense? 38 times.

To put it another way, we pay 14 NASAs in interest on the national debt!

Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

"Could new transmitters be built? Yes..."

"...in the 30 years since it departed Earth we've lost the ability to speak its language"

Huh? Those two sentences contradict each other. We have the ability to "speak the language", but we choose not to.

Re:Wrong

[bughunter]

Not contradictory at all.

You're conflating two layers of protocol: The encoding layer and the modulation scheme.

A dracononian cut

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"Thanks, Obama!"

Seriously, remember these politicians lose fewer votes cancelling this stuff than they do reducing SS payments 0.0000001%.

What about Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station?

[bigpat]

Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station has some dishes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

THIS ISNT NEWS.

[bloggerhater]

What is with all the dated shit sifting to the top of slashdot lately?!?

Because NASA wants pork, not science

[Squidlips]

NASA is geared toward manned spaceflight pork and any time they can steal money from the unmanned missions, they will. That is why Carl Sagan et. al. started the Planetary Society--to prevent the poaching of funds. It is a continual fight. The current admin tried to shutdown all big planetary missions to fuel the pointless SLS and other manned pork. It is was a struggle just to get a whimpy next lander funded. And forget about a Europa probe of Titan.

Re:Because NASA wants pork, not science

[Anonymous Coward]

More than half of NASA's budget is not for human space flight, and they have a lot of projects by number doing other things that get a lot more done with smaller budgets.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[sjbe]

You claim, because I want lower taxes, that I want NO taxes. Wrong. I want necessary taxes, minimum waste, minimum government intrusion where it should not intrude.

Great. Define minimum. Define what you consider unnecessary government intrusion. I think you are going to find that to be a relatively difficult exercise. Would you support taxes for research that will will have a long term payback to the economy of several multiples of the amount paid plus expansion of our scientific understanding of the universe? NASA provides that. Is that worth the investment? It's not strictly speaking necessary but it does have a payback.

On the other hand the budget of NASA is a rounding error compared to Medicare and Defense spending so unless you have already addressed those I think you are blowing smoke.

Hey, I would support NASA spending the money, if only for the scientific exercise of figuring this out.

So you don't really want minimum "necessary" taxes? You seem a bit conflicted here.

Headline Contradicts Summary

[TangoMargarine]

No, nobody "forgot" how to do it; the hardware simply doesn't exist anymore. It's an implementation detail, not a knowledge gap. (Unless it's the other way around and the summary is wrong while the headline is right.)

Re:Headline Contradicts Summary

[UnknowingFool]

Yeah. It specifically says in the summary that the equipment needed no longer exists and is too expensive for NASA to rebuild. Too expensive actually means NASA doesn't have the funds for something of this priority and could spend the money in other places. "NASA has no funds to talk to ICE/ISEE-3 Spacecraft" is probably a better title if it passes the headline length

Re:Headline Contradicts Summary

[TangoMargarine]

I have for a long time now assumed that every article summary is out to mislead us somehow (malice vs. incompetence etc.) so I can't say I'm surprised.

Re:They would have to take budget from somewhere e

[TangoMargarine]

I don't mind paying taxes, I just wish they wouldn't be spent idiotically on unnecessary military bloat and partisan posturing.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[TangoMargarine]

Sure.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[rickb928]

We shouldn't be intruding in other people's business"

Ok, make your case. Why should we not be involved in those regions?

And don't try and frame my challenge as a defense of any of this. You imply that we have no business on those regions. Explain please. If you can.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[rickb928]

Yes, it is complex. We have representatives who should be seeking advice, and let the process work. And yes, the lobbyists arr a problem. Citizen involvement is critical, and we are largely not involved.

Fail

[The Cat]

America couldn't build dogshit if it backed a dump truck full of scrambled eggs into a kennel.

Re:Fail

[LandGator]

Maybe the gummint ain't interested, but Americans can and do - 73s and best regards de K7AAY.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewher

[Anonymous Coward]

How about you explain why, we as taxpayers should be paying to be those countries? There needs to be a justification, not the other way around.

And protecting business interests is the wrong answer.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[MemoryAid]

So, to summarize, you have put forward a nuanced position to clarify that you don't favor the extreme position. You have then been charged with favoring a different extreme position. Now you are challenging the AC to support his own straw man.

As an aside, is there a sub-classification of the straw man fallacy that deals specifically with oversimplifying toward one extreme or another? I'm a big fan of labeling logical fallacies within the discussions where they occur.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[Anonymous Coward]

hence why there is so much interest in drones. Can keep the defense spending pork going, and avoid spending cash on soldiers and their needs. If someone figures out a general purpose land drone with enough power to do sorties, Boots on the ground may never happen with bots capable of patrols and making strikes on ground targets..

well yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA is keeping all the alien transmitters ready. They haven't gotten rid of those yet.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[lgw]

Not the OP, but I've long advocated the same stance. I'm pretty much OK with all the money spent that's neither Defense nor transfer payments. Sure, I think a lot of it is wasteful or even harmful, but hey, that's democracy for you. Overall only 20% or so of the budget goes to infrastructure and funding cowboy poetry and whatever, and it's not worth sweating.

The military is being gutted. We'll probable go to far and our grandchildren will regret it, as China and Russia but still show territorial ambitions, but hey, from a budget perspective, it's certainly going down fast.

Mostly, taxes payments simply become government checks mailed out to people. That's the part I have a problem with. I'm all for retirement planning and charity, but I think the legitimate government role in that is quite small, and those checks don't need to pass through their sticky fingers to get the job done.

Re:Disturbing, heartwrenching and yet exhilarating

[Gavagai80]

It makes me mad, I want fresh young atoms.

Publicity stunt?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds to me like NASA is trying to use this to draw attention to their lack of funding these days. Can't really say I blame them.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhe

[rickb928]

You offered the examples. You can defend them, or not.

Misleading Post title.

[Shadowmist]

The post styling seems to intimate an act of negligence or mistake by NASA on the order which doomed the Martian mission which crashed into the Red Planet because of a miscommunication measuring units. Fact of the matter is that the spacecraft's mission ended decades ago, and it's apparant life is in the form of a failure in the shutdown protocol. To think of a new mission, and program the spacecraft requires time in planning and expense in recreating technology long declared obsolete, and dedication of man-hours to operation and implementation. These are not trivial considerations. Fact of the matter is that there are quite a few active missions involving craft and rovers that have exceeded their design lifetimes and are in extended mission phase. Some, maybe many of these are going to be shutdown because NASA's budget can not accommodate the expense of keeping them running along with active programs. I would not want a cent spent on this over-romanticised anomaly.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[x_t0ken_407]

It's fucking sad to putting this all in perspective and hear/read it all together. What a fucking sad state of affairs we're in. I had no intentions of plugging anything when I began this post, but I'm going to do it now since I know some AC will ask "what do you do to stop it?" This is what I do, and you should too.

R.I.P. NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA used to be a wonderful agency.
Now I suppose we'll have to turn to the Chinese agency for manned space exploration.

isn't there an app for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

If not, a googler can whip one up on there 20% time.

Re:Disturbing, heartwrenching and yet exhilarating

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care about the atoms, they're like CPU instructions, all the same no matter (ha!) where or when they are executed. I want fresh young CELLS in my body.

Re:And BBC Basic lives on !

[slincolne]

I love how the control software for the Bochum Radio Telescope telescope was developed in BBC Basic !

Some people don't know how to let go (or think about where they will get another risc pc to replace the one they are using).

Voyager's Return all over again

[wolverine1999]

It's Voyager's Return all over again

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V...

So what are these "transmitters"?

[TheSync]

What are these "old-fashioned transmitters" that are not available any more? What frequency, bandwidth, and power are required?

Re:So what are these "transmitters"?

[LandGator]

Either an 8,500 euro transceiver http://www.cubesatshop.com/ind... or an SDR (Software Defined Radio) http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/fil... (or maybe the $18 receiver noted at http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wi... and http://hackaday.com/2012/06/27..., or a SoftRock TXRX http://fivedash.com/index.php?...), an upconverter/downconverter, dual circular polarized antennas, and an S-band broadband amp. See http://mdkenny.customer.netspa... for frequency specs. 73s and best regards, y'all, de K7AAY

Re:So what are these "transmitters"?

[TheSync]

OK so we're talking S-band, 256bps FSK uplink with CP. Is that really "old fashioned"?

Re:So what are these "transmitters"?

[LandGator]

Downgrade it to 64bps, that's what it's set to now.

Re:They would have to take budget from somewhere e

[ediron2]

This needs to be a unit of measure, like a Library of Congress (LOC).

I say this expressly *because* every time a politician gets the urge to throw more or less money at NASA, it'd adjust techies' nattering about many NASA's this or that costs.

No funding? No problem!

[Toad-san]

A friend suggested they just make the specs open source. Someone will build it :-)

Obligatory XKCD

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory ... nevermind.

Obligatory response

[Anonymous Coward]

"V'GER seeks the creator. The carbon units will provide the data. Why does the creator not respond?"

So, how much *does* it cost

[Askmum]

And why won't the likes of Gates or Slim fund this. Just because.

Uh Oh

[Anonymous Coward]

What if someone figures out how to talk to it, and puts it on a collision course?

And there's the proof

[MXB2001]

That tech-junkies who love to upgrade and throw away tech because it's not brand new are idiots.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[CHIT2ME]

China just increased their defense spending 12.5%. Better brush up on your Chinese!!!

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[lucien86]

I can put it much more simply, at its height over many years the Iraq occupation cost the USA an average of some $10 billion PER month - in direct costs alone. That works out at an average of $120 billion per year - just think what NASA could do with just that kind of money - from one year less in Iraq.

What was the final outcome of that war? anything good? anything of value? Is the middle east any a better place for it? Does the world like or respect America or the west more now than before? Who really benefited from that war?, Al Qaeda got an immense boost and lost a major enemy in the region, a lot of defence contractors got a little richer, we got some more oil. A lot of US soldiers and a lot more Iraqis died and .. it all seems a bit pointless to me.

Re: They would have to take budget from somewhere

[Stuarticus]

Typical right wing fallacy "All the taxes I support are justified, everyone else is wrong".

Re:Misleading Post title.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine. We're not asking you to. But there appear to be volunteers willing and able to at least make an attempt. Cock-blocking them is rude.