Any weblinks where we can learn something about the where-abouts of ICE/ISEE ( International Comet Explorer / International Sun Earth Explorer ) as the craft was expected to return to Earth in 2014?
From the document below, which is a very long Word document. 37 pages and over 10 Mbytes in all.
highorbits.jhuapl.edu/aplmisns.doc
"Three delta-V maneuvers totaling 42 m/sec were performed in 1985 to target ICE to fly through the tail axis of Comet Giacobini Zinner about 8000 km from the nucleus. More details of the highly successful encounter are given elsewhere.
In 2014, ICE will pass near the Earth, and an in-plane delta-V of 1.5 m/sec and an out-of-plane delta-V of 39 m/sec were performed on February 27 and April 7, 1986, respectively, to target a lunar swingby on August 10, 2014.
That swingby plus some small maneuvers could capture ICE back into an Earth orbit, perhaps even returning it to a libration-point orbit14. ISEE-3/ICE may be known to most for its comet “first”, but in astronautics it is most famous for pioneering the use of both libration-point and double-lunar-swingby orbits."
Rob
Indeed the multiple lunar flybys (5 in total in 1983) were needed to establish the transfer trajectory towards comet Giacobini-Zinner. (closest approach 7800 kilometers on 11th September 1985)
The spacecraft even flew 0.2 AU on the Sunward side of comet Halley on 28th March 1986.
Funny note: NASA has donated the spacecraft to the National Air & Space Museum if it could be captured/recovered during the Earth flyby in the year 2014
6 years to go before it comes close to Earth again
PhilCo or anybody else who has a collection of old journals: do any of you have the an issue of the Journal of the Astronautical Sciences from 2001, vol. 49, no. 1? I'm looking for an article "The flight of ISEE-3/ICE: Origins, mission history, and a legacy," specifically, figure 29...
--Emily
Here is a photo of ISEE-3 plus a diagram from the depths of the Internet. And for comparison a picture of ISEE-1.
Rob
This link is to a Time magazine article from long ago on ISEE-3 / ICE - first comet encounter by humans:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,959946,00.html
Interesting reading!
Rob
Hello,
I'm starting a scratchbuild of ISEE-3/ICE in 1/24 scale. The images & other info posted here were a great start.
According to the press kit, the spacecraft sounds to be mostly hollow and open at the bottom side, with the exception of a cone-shaped structure that extends down from the instrument shelf (visible in top or oblique photos & drawings) to connect to the launch vehicle payload adapter. I'm visualizing something like the Pioneer Venus orbiter, where you could see all the way in from underneath.
Does anybody have a picture of the underside of ISEE-3/ICE to confirm this?
Thanks very much!
Jeff
Jeff this is Rob (Yahoo - Space Modeler member). I'll see what I have at home, if the Internet is up there. We lost our modem over the weekend and it was to be repaired today. Have you checked the Files on the S-M website? There is a photo of ICE on the spin balance table that shows part of the lower structure.
Part 2 - I found this diagram of the gamma ray detector which is mounted on the aft end. The diagram shows no protruding structure. That kind of structure would block the -Z axis antenna. The diagram is from a data set report found on the internet.
Here is the ISEE 3 (ICE) S-band antenna - 4 inch diameter x 30 inches long
So - time warp for a thread time but...
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2008/1673.html
In that awesome article, Emily mentioned that it would need to be reactivated in 2012 for a 2014 recapture.
Any news on that? I've heard nothing.
http://www.agu.org/journals/sw/swa/opinion/article/?id=2012SW000832 (15 August 2012)
I actually talked with Farquhar about this a couple of months ago. I got no news from the conversation though. They're still working on it; there's no update on specific future plans. I can ask around but don't think there'd be much point right now. If I haven't heard anything new before August 2013, I'll begin pestering people then.
I stumbled upon this conference at the BIS by Robert Farquhar: http://www.bis-space.com/2012/11/29/7813/bis-prestige-lecture-teaching-old-spacecraft-new-tricks
watch out for this paper to be presented at this year's IAF congress in September
http://www.iafastro.net/iac/paper/id/16371/summary.lite/
Emily is the pesterer-in-chief!
Has anyone ever heard anything further on this?
Doug M.
last times I heard about ICE are these two blog posts by Emily:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/09181511-ice-is-returning-to-earth.html
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/20131231-whats-up-in-planetary-2014.html
I haven't heard anything since then.
there was a sad update this morning on the https://www.facebook.com/ISEE3returns
speaking of which, radio hams wanting to try to receive the carrier from the probe can find infos on the communication system http://mdkenny.customer.netspace.net.au/ISEE-3.pdf and http://ipnpr.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report/42-84/84title.htm (scroll to the section on ICE).
orbital data are much more difficult to find and ICE is not on JPL's Horizon. There are daily heliocentric ephemeris up to 1997 ftp://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacecraft_data/isee/isee3/traj/daily/ and lots of old orbital data http://pdssbn.astro.umd.edu/holdings/ice-c-mag-3-rdr-giacobin-zin-v1.0/geometry/. Unfortunately, the latter date from before the sizeable 1986 maneuvers (see http://ipnpr.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report/42-86/86CC.PDF for info), So they are probably useless, even if you had a good orbit propagator to take into account all perturbations (including solar radiation pressure that must be non negligeable for such a small spacecraft).
It's worth noting that http://www.r00t.cz/Sats/Grail was able to decode the Grail signal all the way to the actual strings in a spacecraft directory listing, which is quite impressive. I think commanding ISEE-3 is likely out of reach, but decoding the telemetry might at least be possible for these folks.
as far as I know the transmitter on ICE is only beaming a carrier wave, so there is no telemetry to be decoded
xkcd hits a home run again!
http://xkcd.com/1337/
it's still alive!!!
http://amsat-uk.org/2014/03/09/radio-amateurs-receive-nasa-isee-3ice-spacecraft/
such a waste...
They say, "In light of the recent observations and the available facilities in Bochum, additional studies about the economic feasibility to add a suitable uplink are being done." Unfortunately, I think this comes a little too late. Why didn't AMSAT-DL got active years earlier? Didn't they know of this opportunity?
note that ICE has finally been added to JPL's Horizon spacecraft database
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi#top
A plot of the trajectory of ICE from January 2013 until 11 August 2014, with the Earth fixed at 1,0. The red square is the position of the probe today.
From the JPL Horizon data, the closest approach will be on 9 August at 11.44 UTC at about 404,000 km.
hope is not lost... http://www.npr.org/2014/03/18/289628696/space-thief-or-hero-one-mans-quest-to-reawaken-an-old-friend
Great article, thanks. It's amazing (to me) that I can read the thing and think, "oh yeah, 1978 launch, clearly amazing/impossible/jawdropping." And then I recall that the Voyagers were launched in 1977, though they are RTG powered. I can't seem to find the longevity record for solar power.
There are some people in Germany try to get in contact with ICE.
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/weltall/kometenjaeger-ice-amsat-funkamateure-wollen-sonde-einfangen-a-958189.html
The article contains links to some technical documents of ISSE-3/ICE:
Apparently an attempt is being made. http://www.rockethub.com/projects/42228-isee-3-reboot-project-by-space-college-skycorp-and-spaceref#description-tab
http://www.rockethub.com/projects/42228-isee-3-reboot-project-by-space-college-skycorp-and-spaceref#description-tab.
[Edit: Link is fixed now in the post above, thanks!]
Latest news at http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reboot-project-status-and-schedule-for-first-contact.html. Sounds like they're making good progress, considering the challenge.
They've now exceeded theirhttp://www.rockethub.com/projects/42228-isee-3-reboot-project-by-space-college-skycorp-and-spaceref, which is a good sign.
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reboot-project-hardware-detects-isee-3-at-arecibo.html
Indeed - the AmSat DL team at Bochum with their 20m dish that's just 1/15th the diameter of Arecibo received a signal almost 2 months ago
http://amsat-uk.org/tag/bochum/
A minor update: a comment today to http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=30681#comments about the recontact attempt.
from an email just sent to supporters:
One wonders how much of this is a real concern and how much an attempt to increase drama. The latter would be understandable but I look forward to the technical details.
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reboot-project-updates-from-the-front-at-arecibo-by-dennis-wingo.html
First commands may be sent as early as Tuesday....
So... the lunar flyby was supposed to be very low altitude, and the current uncertainty means the spacecraft might impact. "This has become extremely important as there is a solid statistical chance that the spacecraft could impact the moon or even be off course enough to threaten other spacecraft in Earth orbit."
(http://nasawatch.com/archives/2014/05/isee-3-is-not-e.html)
Is it inappropriate of me to wish for an impact so I can mark it on my map? Not even if I said it was to save those other spacecraft?
Phil
The stated error is 250e3 km, presumably derived from RA/dec errors in pointing since they don't have any range data. Unless there's some data they haven't described, they really know very little about the actual positional error, and prognosticating impacts or approach distances is nearly meaningless at this point. They need ranging, and for that they have to command the spacecraft AFAIK.
"...off course enough to threaten other spacecraft in Earth orbit..."
Oh, come ON. That's off-scale unlikely & quite unnecessarily dramatic. My odds of winning the lottery three times in a row are probably better than ISEE-3 colliding with an Earth-orbiting spacecraft.
Agreed - it's a laughable suggestion.
Yes - but Juno was coming to within a few hundred km of Earth - thru the shell of comm HEO, MEO, LEO spacecraft - thousands and thousands of active and tens of thousands of deceased bits of hardware. That is deserving
ISEE-3 with possible lunar flyby or lunar impact? Using words like "threaten other spacecraft in Earth orbit" - that's laughable. There's as much chance as a random asteroid taking out an earth orbiting spacecraft
Good point Doug. It sounds like a bunch of self-serving hype if you ask me.
according to the latest tweet by the ISEE3 Reboot Project
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/we-are-now-in-command-of-the-isee-3-spacecraft.html
SUCCESS!!! http://spacecollege.org/isee3/we-are-now-in-command-of-the-isee-3-spacecraft.html
Is receiving telemetry the same as getting transponding?
It's good news, but the people handling the PR and social media are behaving like rank amateurs. The hype at this point that the ICE / ISEE-3 team are churning out is really premature and they are setting themselves up for a media feeding frenzy if everything doesn't go exactly as planned. I get the sense that there are one or more huge egos driving this rather than the cooler heads we typically encounter with NASA professionals.
Could anyone please explain this http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-spacecraft-status.html to me? It sounds like a paradox: We have successfully commanded both of ISEE-3's data multiplexers into engineering telemetry mode. The current bitrate is 512 bits/sec. … When we are confident of the state of the spacecraft, we will be placing the bird in engineering telemetry mode as soon as possible.
Either it's poorly worded and the spacecraft is already in engineering mode, or it's possible to set the multiplexers to produce a modulated data stream but not pull actual data from sources on the spacecraft. In the latter case one presumes the data being sent would be fill or garbage. I haven't found any information that describes the ISEE systems in enough detail to know for sure. http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftTelemetry.do?id=1978-079A has a little but not much.
I just hope that they don't try any truly absurd grandstanding. That ridiculous statement about ISEE-3 possibly colliding with Earth-orbiting sats still really sticks in my craw.
The right thing to do here would be to use this exercise as an EPO tool to inform people about the very interesting & too often unappreciated field of spacecraft command & control. I'd honestly love to read a book about their efforts when it's all over. But if they or some individual(s) among them try to portray their efforts as anything but doing something very cool for the sheer fun of it that'll definitely cross a line.
as http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/35-year-old-isee-3-spacecraft-phones-home/ reminds
At last a nice blog post full of details about exactly what they've managed to do so far!
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reboot-project-update-bullseye-and-more.html
Looks like they'll need only 5.8m/sec to divert onto the appropriate lunar flyby trajectory.
Hats off to them! Fascinating work, and remarkable that the trajectory of the spacecraft remained so stable!
More news from the source pointed out by Doug.
>ISEE-3 Mission Status 3 June 2014
Telemetry we have received from ISEE-3 shows that it is spinning at 19.16 rpm. The mission specification is 19.75 +/- 0.2 rpm. We have also learned that the spacecraft's attitude relative to the ecliptic is 90.71 degrees - the specification is 90 +/- 1.5 degrees. In addition, we are now receiving information from the spacecraft'shttp://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/experimentDisplay.do?id=1978-079A-02.
For those who were wondering what the small body radar images mentioned in an ISEE update were, here they are:
http://www.usra.edu/news/pr/2014/comet209PLINEAR/
Fairly fitting that it's a comet.
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-16-june-2014-afternoon.html
We have a very strong confirmation (correct number of commands accepted) that transponder A is in coherent ranging mode and we have reasonably strong confirmation that transponder B is also in coherent ranging mode. We are now set up and ready to go for our first ranging session with DSN on 18 June. Our first session will use DSS-24, a 34 meter dish with 20kW transmitter located at Goldstone in California.
If this ranging session with DSN is successful then we will proceed with plans to briefly fire two of the spacecraft's thrusters on 21 June so as to spin it up from 19.16 rpm to the mission specification of 19.75 +/- 0.2 rpm.
Our spin-up target is 19.733 rpm, which is an increase of 0.573 rpm from the currently observed 19.16 rpm. This burn would utilize spin-up thrusters A and B (see image above) at a 22.5 degree pulse-width. There would be 11 pulses, taking 34 seconds to complete, with a total fuel usage of 0.0418 pounds.
This optimal spin rate is required in order to properly fire the axial thrusters during the much longer trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) we need to perform to adjust the spacecraft's course. That TCM burn is now scheduled to happen between 30 June and 2 July.
ISEE3 should show up as ICE on DSN Now at http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn
Currently it's scheduled from 1945 UTC tomorrow with 100 minutes of setup time. It may be 2045 until we therefore see a signal - but it might be earlier than that.
DSN activity!
http://i.imgur.com/MZtaG69.jpg
Edit: Didn't notice the ISEE3Reboot twitter, which was covering this with more detail - https://twitter.com/ISEE3Reboot
"@ISEE3Reboot: We think DSN comms issue has to do w/ #ISEE3 transmitter old age habits - it tends to fall out of ranging mode after a while. Easy to fix."
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-19-june-2014-afternoon.html
In the mean time, due to some pulsar observations that need to be conducted at Arecibo, we have moved up our ISEE-3 Spin-up burn to tomorrow, Friday 20 June. Our window at Arecibo opens around 1:18 pm EDT. We'll be performing the burn during the following several hours.
https://twitter.com/ISEE3Reboot
ISEE3 Reboot Project @ISEE3Reboot 18m
Now sending dummy command to find receiver's sweet spot.
ISEE3 Reboot Project @ISEE3Reboot 13m
Command counter incremented 21 out of 21 times from +5 kHz to 25 kHz.
ISEE3 Reboot Project @ISEE3Reboot 7m
We're going to have to scrub #ISEE3 spin-up burn for today. Can't confirm receipt of commands in real time by the spacecraft.
ISEE3 Reboot Project @ISEE3Reboot 7m
If we cannot confirm that proper commands were sent to propulsion system we cannot fire thrusters with full confidence
ISEE3 Reboot Project @ISEE3Reboot 5m
Real time telemetry is not working as expected on #ISEE3 today. Remember: this spacecraft does not have a computer.
ISEE3 Reboot Project @ISEE3Reboot 2m
All 21 dummy commands worked - that should NOT have happened. Next time we sent them only 3 were accepted. Investigating ...
ISEE3 Reboot Project @ISEE3Reboot 33m
Next #ISEE3 spin-up burn attempt will likely be the middle of next week - after our next DSN session.
SEE3 Reboot Project @ISEE3Reboot 15m
We're still talking to #ISEE3 right now.
I thought I would list the most important posts from the ISEE-3 Reboot Project, in chronological order.
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reference/isee-3-data-collections.html
January 29, 2014 10:53 AM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reference/isee-3-trajectory-information.html
January 30, 2014 10:48 AM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reference/isee-3-experiment-summary.html
January 31, 2014 9:01 AM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reference/isee-3-telemetry-systems.html
January 31, 2014 10:56 AM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3.html
April 14, 2014 11:00 AM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reboot-project-technical-update-1-may-2014.html
May 1, 2014 5:21 PM
A lengthy post summarizing the technical issues facing the Reboot Project at its start.
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reboot-project-near-term-objectives.html
May 5, 2014 10:17 AM
Another fairly lengthy post going into more detail about what steps needed to be taken to restore the ISEE-3 spacecraft to normal operations.
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reboot-project-status-and-schedule-for-first-contact.html
May 15, 2014 11:37 AM
An overview of the assets in place and expected, for contacting the spacecraft.
http://ISEE-3%20Reboot%20Project%20Hardware%20Detects%20ISEE-3%20at%20Arecibo
May 19, 2014 11:19 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/stronger-signal-at-arecibo.html
May 22, 2014 5:56 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reboot-amplifier-installed-at-arecibo.html
May 23, 2014 7:37 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reboot-project-updates-from-the-front-at-arecibo-by-dennis-wingo.html
May 25, 2014 6:02 PM
Overview of previous week's activities at Arecibo.
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/we-are-now-capable-of-making-first-contact.html
May 26, 2014 8:11 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/we-are-now-in-command-of-the-isee-3-spacecraft.html
May 29, 2014 4:07 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-spacecraft-status.html
May 29, 2014 6:35 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/confirmation-that-isee-3-is-transmitting-telemetry.html
May 29, 2014 8:11 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-mission-control.html
May 30, 2014 8:29 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reboot-project-update-bullseye-and-more.html
June 1, 2014 7:14 PM
Good summary of ISEE-3's status, including first telemety received from the spacecraft.
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/nasaisee-3-reboot-project-space-act-agreement.html
June 3, 2014 10:42 AM
Text of the agreement with NASA.
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-mission-status-3-june-2014.html
June 3, 2014 2:01 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-5-june-2014.html
June 5, 2014 11:42 AM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-5-june-2014-afternoon.html
June 5, 2014 3:59 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-6-june-2014-afternoon.html
June 6, 2014 4:49 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/images/what-isee-3-really-looks-like.html
June 7, 2014 11:36 AM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-9-june-2014-afternoon.html
June 9, 2014 11:45 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-science-instrument-update-12-june-2014.html
June 12, 2014 4:40 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-reboot-project-scheduled-for-dsn-ranging-activity.html
June 13, 2014 9:42 AM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-13-june-2014.html
June 13, 2014 10:21 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-propulsion-system-overview.html
June 14, 2014 10:14 AM
Detailed overview of ISEE-3 propulsion system.
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-16-june-2014-afternoon.html
June 16, 2014 5:55 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-19-june-2014-afternoon.html
June 19, 2014 8:36 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-20-june-2014-afternoon.html
June 20, 2014 3:22 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-23-june-2014-dsn-ranging-update.html
June 23, 2014 9:26 AM
Fairly detailed analysis of command uplink failure.
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-24-june-2014-we-almost-did-the-spin-up-burn.html
June 24, 2014 6:56 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-25-june-2014.html
June 25, 2014 7:01 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-26-june-2014-dsn-ranging-success.html
June 26, 2014 5:22 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-27-june-2014-another-dsn-ranging-success.html
June 27, 2014 8:36 PM
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-engines-fired-for-spin-up.html
It's a fair bit later than some initial projections of when the big TCM had to be completed by, though the more recent blog posts appear to target June 30-July 2.
I wonder when the expected delta-V available truly falls short of the amount required.
They've scheduled the TCM for tomorrow; Arecibo window from 12:42pm-3:29pm EDT .
https://twitter.com/ISEE3Reboot
for today's TCM, AMSAT Germany is displaying real time telemetry
http://www.amsat-dl.org/index.html
First burn complete. Looks like it went well.
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80747109/
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-9-july-2014-afternoon.html
http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-15-july-2014.html
I'm not sure it's necessary to just repost information that can be seen on the ISEE-3 website.
So it is indeed out of Nitrogen. http://spacecollege.org/isee3/isee-3-status-report-23-july-2014.html
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