Group wants to recover a 36 year old space probe...

captainoblivous

Found out about this from slashdot. Apparently, a group of engineers wants to bring the 36 year old ICE probe back into use. From what I've read, they need $125,000 to make it happen and NASA has basically gone "The data we could get would be awesome and it would be a hell of an achievement, but we can't afford it.".

http://makezine.com/2014/04/24/crowdfunding-the-recovery-of-a-lost-spacecraft/

So now they (the engineers, not nasa) are trying to crowdfund it.

http://www.rockethub.com/42228



It'd be a shame if they missed out on the chance to make it so!

steamwright

interesting thought. I'm puzzled by how computer technology of half an average lifetime ago will be able to work with mobile apps and such, particularly in volume. Unless they intend to send a manned craft to install a new computer.

iconians

In order to interact with the spacecraft we will need to locate the original commands and then develop a software recreation of the original hardware that was used to communicate with the spacecraft. These are our two greatest challenges.

The funding we seek will be used for things we have not already obtained from volunteers. We need to initiate a crash course effort to use 'software radio' to recreate virtual versions all of the original communications hardware that no longer physically exists. We also need to cover overhead involved in operating a large dish antenna, locating and analyzing old documentation, and possibly some travel.

And all of this has to be done by mid-June?

Good luck with that.

lilchibiclari

The whole plan does seem to hinge on the assumption that the probe is still functional enough to receive and respond to signals. I am assuming that the only reason that it was decommissioned in the first place was due to a lack of funding for keeping it going (or else it was just made obsolete by a newer probe).

mirrorchaos

captainoblivous wrote: »

Found out about this from slashdot. Apparently, a group of engineers wants to bring the 36 year old ICE probe back into use. From what I've read, they need $125,000 to make it happen and NASA has basically gone "The data we could get would be awesome and it would be a hell of an achievement, but we can't afford it.".

http://makezine.com/2014/04/24/crowdfunding-the-recovery-of-a-lost-spacecraft/

So now they (the engineers, not nasa) are trying to crowdfund it.

http://www.rockethub.com/42228



It'd be a shame if they missed out on the chance to make it so!

so NASA has got all this money for rockets, high grade fuels, specially built shuttles, landing pads and such costing billions of dollars to operate and they cant spare 125k?

i find it difficult to believe that NASA cant get the money together to unlock the data. better still, send the probe out to Russia or China, let them unlock the data if they want to.

f9thaceshigh

I think you miss read the OP, this isn't about recovering data from a probe. Right now, the probe is in a solar orbit that is going to intercept the Earth. They are looking to get the funding to reactivate the probe and fire it's thrusters to place it back in an Earth-sun lagrange orbit so it can get back to doing the science it was designed for.