Updates ISEE-3 Reboot Project

[jedidia]

To be fair, it's the first time anything like this has ever been attempted. It was never guaranteed to work.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Hell, it went better than I expected it to. Still is, as a matter of fact.

 

[RisingFury]

I didn't expect much from it in the first place. That said, even if they fail completely, at least there's now a channel established by which NASA can hand over (semi)functional equipment in space that it no longer intends to use to people who might still use it.

 

[GLS]

(I had to get away, sorry)

We did get thrust today & change in FSS angle. We need to determine how that happened & then focus on that as part of the next steps

We didn't get engine burns we hoped but we demonstrated there is something in #ISEE3 that can produce thrust - and with that there's hope.

The fact that we did not get much of an increase in tank temps is an indication of the presence of fuel

Looks like it wasn't a totally good day, but also not a bad day.
Even if they can't fire the thrusters, and get the spacecraft back around L1, most of the science instruments are still funcional and they still can get data from them, so it's not a (total) failure. This just makes it difficult to listen to it, to get the science: instead of being "near" Earth, it will continue it's way around the sun.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Just for smiles, we're talking to a probe that has been in solar orbit longer than I have been alive, battered by who knows what, and we're asking it "ready for some more work, big fella?".

This is friggin' awesome, even if the burns don't work out. This is a sign of a civilization that gives a damn.

I'm proud to be an Orbinaut with all of you.

 

[GLS]

After an attempt yesterday to "hammer" the tank valves, looks like they have (officially) given up on getting ISEE-3 back into L1, so it will fly by the Moon in a few days and keep going on its merry way around the Sun.
But this is not the end the project, as it still has working instruments and it's doing science.... just not nearby (not a bad thing).
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