First Contact! Communication Established With NASA's Drifting ISEE-3

A private group of space science enthusiasts announced yesterday that they have successfully made contact with an old NASA spacecraft that has been drifting in space since the early 1980s.

The craft, known as the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3), completed its primary mission to study solar wind flow in 1981. Afterwards, the craft was sent to expend the rest of its fuel and resources studying two comets before it was expected to drift out of contact range with Earth.

Now, 35 years later, the private ISEE-3 Reboot Project through Space College has successfully achieved the first steps in reclaiming data and setting the old space probe on a new mission.

According to a Space College press release, the ISEE-3 Reboot Project team made first contact with the 35-year-old probe via the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico, who is participating in the "once-in-a-lifetime" educational exercise.

"Our team has established two-way communication with the ISEE-3 spacecraft and has begun commanding it to perform specific functions," the project team announced Thursday. "Over the coming days and weeks our team will make an assessment of the spacecraft's overall health and refine the techniques required to fire its engines and bring it back to an orbit near Earth."

Later that same day the team announced that they have successfully gained control of both of ISEE-3's data multiplexers and are in the midst of studying data received from the spacecraft. If the data and "health" of the craft are satisfactory, the team plans to remotely control the spacecraft in collaboration with the scientists over at Arecibo sometime next week, setting it off on a new Sun observation mission.

"If we are successful, it may also still be able to chase yet another comet," the team reported in an earlier release.

The ISEE-3 Reboot Project is a crowdfunding project launched for educational purposes. According to the project update site, they have exceeded their $125,000 goal by 28 percent, giving the team ample funds to see the reboot run smoothly in the approaching week.