
We Are Now In Command of the ISEE-3 Spacecraft - jwise0
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/we-are-now-in-command-of-the-isee-3-spacecraft.html
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0x0
Are there any technical details available? It would be super interesting to
see all the stuff that is re-developed from old specs, and to see how all the
calculations and commands fit together to reach thw mission goals, or even
what the received data and telemetry looks like.

Or is this kept confidential to try to prevent outsiders from going at it like
in that xkcd posted in the comments here? Or is the only "protection" based on
the requirement to have access to those huge observatories?

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devindotcom
_only "protection"_

Arecibo isn't like a public library or something. You can't just go in and
start hitting buttons! They used it as the climax of a Bond movie!

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sp332
Not of Arecibo, of the satellite. Do you need to authenticate with the probe?

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devindotcom
I doubt it's more complicated than knowing the language and having the proper
transmission hardware. 1978 seems a little early to be worrying about hacks of
that variety. That said the hardware could also have some kind of encryption
built in. I'll ask if I get a chance, though - I hope to get some details from
the project soon.

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taejo
> 1978 seems a little early to be worrying about hacks of that variety.

Interesting, then, that the scenario already appeared in fiction by 1950 (in
the Tintin story _Objectif Lune_ / _Destination Moon_ )

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dTal
If they do manage to fire the engines, it has to pass through the lunar shadow
on the way back to Earth and as it's running off solar panels this means a
total shutdown, which it's never done before (alas, the uptime!). Let's hope
it comes back up!

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mschuster91
I'd be surprised if the probe doesn't carry some batteries exactly for this
kind of event...

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jccooper
After more than 30 years I'd have to consider any batteries suspect... Much
less ones that spent their time in space.

Considering it was meant to spend its life at L1 it may not have any
batteries. Then again it also doesn't have a computer so it should be fairly
robust.

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sitkack
Damning praise on site populated by technorati.

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trhway
this guy's been places :)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ISEE3-ICE-
trajectory.gif](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ISEE3-ICE-trajectory.gif)

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bashinator
There was an article linked here a while back on the guy who designed that
trajectory. It was completely intentional that ISEE3 would eventually return
for further usage.

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mikeash
Further, he would arrange it so that mission milestones happened on
colleagues' birthdays or anniversaries, just because he could. What a guy.

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ForHackernews
"Sorry honey, we can't go out to dinner for our anniversary...I have to be at
mission control."

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cclogg
Whoa I did not know anything about this story until now ><

On a related note, I also just noticed that the "Arecibo Radio Observatory"
was in Goldeneye!

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duskwuff
The Arecibo observatory has the world's largest radio telescope. They're very
well known -- while they've been involved with a lot of space research,
they're particularly famous for being the transmit site for the Arecibo
Message:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message)

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ForHackernews
> We have successfully commanded both of ISEE-3's data multiplexers into
> engineering telemetry mode. The current bitrate is 512 bits/sec.

BITS not even BYTES, let alone kilobytes.

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noselasd
[http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html](http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html) ,
you'll catch the DSN every now and then downlinking the voyager spacecrafts at
about 160 bits/sec.

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dm2
That's an awesome page, thanks!

I happen to see VGR1 pulling down data at "159.00 b/sec" right now.

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datenwolf
I don't really understand why this page reports the received power in kW? This
will inevitable result all reported power levels be some 10^-p with p > 3.

Also Watt is not a very useful unit here. You want something like dB(mW) which
is much handier to work with. Good thing is, you just have to look at the
exponent to get a rough dB(mW) figure: 10·log_10(m) - (p-6)·10, p being the
exponent, m being the mantissa; for a quick estimate let m = 5, 10·log_10(5)
=~= 7. So for the p = -23 this gives about -167dB(mW), which is accurate
enough.

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bad_alloc
Is this the satellite NASA had given up because there was no communications
equipment left?

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arrrg
Funding, as always, seems to have been the issue.

If NASA doesn’t have the money for it (or thinks they have better things to do
with the money), they can’t do anything. The explanation of not having access
to communications equipment is more about the cost of restoring that ability,
not any claim that contacting the probe would in principle be impossible.

The message is more or less that they don’t just have some device standing
around they can flip on and sit some intern in front of it for a few hours to
get this going. NASA wanted to express that substantially more effort would be
required.

It seems that many people (including people at NASA) are donating a lot of
resources, time and money to this project. That’s why this can happen. But
NASA can’t budget with the expectation of receiving donations.

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calinet6
"Can't" is a bit simplistic.

Think of it like that old piece of software you wrote when you were young that
you've since abandoned, because you know, about 20 years have passed, no one
uses AppleII's anymore, 126 some odd other pieces of software that do exactly
the same thing but better and faster have been released, and also mobile
happened. Besides, you have a job now doing modern things for modern reasons
that are actually valuable to people and the world and stuff, so really
there's not even a reason to figure out how a 5 and a quarter floppy drive can
possibly connect to your rMBP to have a look at the code and see if an
emulator or whatever would make it run right.

But if someone wants to throw $151,000 in donations at it, sure kids, have a
ball. And yeah, of course we'll reminisce and have some fun with it over a
beer or two. Those were the good old days, after all, when we were real rocket
scientists, and space probes Farquharing around the solar system on a
perfectly choreographed dance of not just _one_ mission, but _three_ —no, not
two, _three_ —what do you think it's doing right now? You think this kind of
thing just happens by chance? Have fun—and bring her back in one piece, will
ya?

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ColinDabritz
Simply amazing.

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iamdanfox
Twitch spacecraft anyone?

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servowire
The fact that this machine is still in operation is awesome. What a piece of
engineering.

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broabprobe
Brilliantly impressive. Especially considering they're operating out of an old
McDonalds on the NASA Ames campus.

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dm2
A former McDonalds. At first I was thinking you meant they were using
McDonalds' free wifi for connecting to the satellite.

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apetresc
Another xkcd has come true! [http://xkcd.com/1337/](http://xkcd.com/1337/)

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tonglil
Just noticed the url is "LEET" too.

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endgame
These things happen when people number things in sequence.

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TallGuyShort
Computer hacking (I know, I know, "cracking") is not THAT common a topic in
XKCD - I'm sure Randall knew 1337 was coming up and chose a relevant comic to
use that day.

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ShaneOG
Wow. This is an amazing achievement!

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spiritplumber
Woo Hoo!

