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Group Wants To Recover 36-Year-Old Historic Spacecraft From Deep Space

Posted by samzenpus on from the bring-it-home dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A band of space hackers and engineers are trying to do something never done before — recover a 36 year old NASA spacecraft from the grips of deep space and time. With old NASA documents and Rockethub crowdfunding, a team led by Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing is attempting to steer ISEE-3, later rechristened ICE, the International Cometary Explorer, back into an Earth orbit and return it to scientific operations. Dennis says, 'ISEE-3 can become a great teaching tool for future engineers and scientists helping with design and travel to Mars'. Only 40 days remain before the spacecraft will be out of range for recovery. A radio telescope is available, propulsion designs are in hand and the team is hoping for public support to provide the small amount needed to accomplish a very unique milestone in space exploration."

10 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Oblig. by Cryacin · · Score: 4, Funny

    http://www.xkcd.com/1337/

    --
    Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    1. Re:Oblig. by rbf · · Score: 4, Funny

      You must be new here!

  2. Pretty interesting, until... by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From TFA: "If successful ISEE-3 will spend its retirement as a platform for citizen science, with smartphone apps—and a twitter feed"

    Perhaps it would be better to let it drift off into space and die with some dignity after all.

    1. Re:Pretty interesting, until... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hi this is Dennis Wingo, co project lead for the ISEE-3 reboot project.

      There is still a lot of very good use that this satellite can be put to. It can be used as a real time monitor for space weather or as a tool for education. That is dignified.

  3. Re:Satellite smash by iroll · · Score: 4, Informative

    Liability insurance would be cheaper than sending you to a community college class about statistics and probability.

    --
    Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
  4. In for $18 by Quinn_Inuit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let's bring this baby to life!

    --

    Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
  5. Warning... grammar police! by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 4, Informative

    "a very unique milestone in space exploration"

    WTF?

    "unique" is not a relative adjective. There are no degrees of "unique". Something is either unique or it's not.

    Aaargh!

    That's why there are no such words as uniquer or uniquest

    </rant>

    1. Re:Warning... grammar police! by hawguy · · Score: 4, Informative

      "a very unique milestone in space exploration"

      WTF?

      "unique" is not a relative adjective. There are no degrees of "unique". Something is either unique or it's not.

      Aaargh!

      That's why there are no such words as uniquer or uniquest

      </rant>

      Funny thing about English - many words have more than one meaning:

      http://www.merriam-webster.com...

      unique adjective \yu-nk\

      ...

      3: unusual <a very unique ball-point pen> <we were fairly unique, the sixty of us, in that there wasn't one good mixer in the bunch — J. D. Salinger>

      Usage Discussion of UNIQUE

      Many commentators have objected to the comparison or modification (as by somewhat or very) of unique, often asserting that a thing is either unique or it is not. Objections are based chiefly on the assumption that unique has but a single absolute sense, an assumption contradicted by information readily available in a dictionary....

    2. Re:Warning... grammar police! by sconeu · · Score: 4, Informative

      There are no degrees of "infinity". Something is either infinite or it's not.

      Aleph-null and Aleph-one would like a word with you.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  6. Re:Satellite smash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hi, this is Dennis Wingo, co-project lead for this effort.

    There is no need for insurance as the probability of collision is extremely small, far less than for satellites in any other orbit. At no time is this orbit coming even as close as geosynchronous orbit.