Its alive!

Started by maurice clark, 10/22/2008 02:41PM
Posted 10/22/2008 02:41PM Opening Post
Interesting piece on Emily Lakdawalla's planetary society blog about the ICE spacecraft.

If you do not remember, that was originally the ISEE-3 spacecraft launched in 1978 to study the interaction between the Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind, then in 1983, was sent on to study comet Giacobini-Zinner.

Apparently last month JPL were in contact with it for the first time since 1999. The spacecraft is still healthy with only one of its 11 instruments not working.

It seems like they are now considering getting funding to send it on to another comet!

One amusing bit from the blog....

"it was revealed that the fellow who was supposed to have instructed ICE to turn off its radio transmitters during the last communications session maybe had not done so"

Maybe had not done so......... One way to beat the bureaucrats and bean counters! grin

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001673/

Cheers,

Maurice

* Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a day.
* Teach a man to use the internet and he won't bother you for weeks.
Posted 10/29/2008 08:26PM #1
Good stuff Maurice! 8)
Amazing....

Glad they did not shut it off...

Ivan Gastaldo 8)
Coconut Creek, FL

Ivan's Observatory
Lat 26N 16' 48" Long 80W 10' 48"
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Posted 10/29/2008 09:15PM #2
After reading the way the article was worded it does make one wonder if that failure to switch off the transmitters was really a "failure". I would love to have a private chat with that "fellow". I wonder if we could find out who that was...

Dawn