ISEE-3 Reboot Project – preparing for first thruster firing

The ISEE-3 Reboot Project is making progress towards resurrecting the International Cometary Explorer from its decades long hiatus in orbit around the sun. (See previous posts on the ISEE-3 reboot such as here and here.) Here is the news from yesterday: ISEE-3 Status 24 June 2014: We Almost Did The Spin-up Burn – Space College

During our session with Arecibo today we came very, very close to firing the thrusters on ISEE-3 for its spin-up maneuver. But we were not able to complete the process and fire the thrusters. The spacecraft was completely configured for a thruster firing during today’s pass. We reduced the number of pulses from 11 to 1 to make certain that we had the proper commands in place. If that engine firing proceeded successfully we’d follow with the remaining 10 pulses so as to spin up the spacecraft to the required rotation rate. As it happened we were unable to get confirmation on the very last command and put a halt to the procedure.

The spacecraft is in a safe mode – one that has been verified by telemetry. You can follow the real time Tweets of this session by looking at our Twitter account at @ISEE3Reboot. We are waiting for word of our next window at Arecibo. We are now confident that we will be able to perform the required thruster firings to spin up the spacecraft during the next opportunity.

And here is an entertaining article about the project and about the colorful Bob Farquhar who managed the original ISEE-3 program: For him, satellite reboot is about reconnecting with an old friend – Los Angeles Times.