NASA OKs crowdfunded bid to revive probe
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A group of citizen scientists can take over a 36-year-old decommissioned robotic space probe that will fly by Earth in August, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said lastweek.
Launched in 1978, the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 spacecraft studied how the stream of charged particles flowing from the sun, the so-called solar wind, interacts with Earth’s magnetic field.
After completing its primary mission, the probe was given a new name, the International CometaryExplorer, and new targets to study, including the famed Halley’s Comet as it passed by Earth in 1986.
A third assignment, to investigate powerful solar storms, followed until 1997, whenNASAdeactivated the spacecraft.
In August, the satellite’s graveyard orbit around the sun will bring it back by Earth, a feat that caught the eye of a group of citizen scientists. Last month, the team launched a successful crowdfunding project that raised more than $125,000.
The project has received NASA’s blessings and access to technical data to help engineers make contact.
The agreement gives Skycorp Inc., a California company working with the citizen scientists, permission to attempt to contact and control the satellite, thought to stillhave fueland working instruments.
“Our plan is simple: we intend to contact the ISEE-3 spacecraft, command it to fire its engines and enter an orbit near Earth, and then resume its original mission,” Keith Cowing, a former NASA engineer who runs the NASA Watch website, wrote in a status report.