Aerospace company set to communicate with NASA spacecraft

Aerospace company SkyCorp Inc have been given the go ahead to attempt to communicate with a 35-year-old NASA spacecraft. International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) was launched in 1978 to study the constant flow of solar wind streaming towards the Earth. It was redirected to observe two comets in 1981 after successfully completing its first mission, and since then has continued its orbit around the Sun. This summer it will make its closest approach to Earth in 30 years and a team at Skycorp Inc in California want to talk to it. In the first arrangement of its kind, NASA and Skycorp – who worked with NASA on the ISS – have signed a Non-Reimbursable Space Act Agreement (NRSAA) which will allow the latter to attempt to contact and possibly command and control ISEE-3. The agreement also details the technical, safety, legal and proprietary issues that need to be addressed before any attempt to communicate is made. “The intrepid ISEE-3 spacecraft was sent away from its primary mission to study the physics of the solar wind extending its mission of discovery to study two comets,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters. “We have a chance to engage a new generation of citizen scientists through this creative effort to recapture the ISEE-3 spacecraft as it zips by the Earth this summer.” The goal of the project – named ISEE-3 Reboot Project – is to put the spacecraft into an orbit at a gravitationally stable point between the Earth and the sun known as Lagrangian 1 (L1). Once safely in this orbit, scientists would return the spacecraft to operations and use its instruments as they were originally designed. The spacecraft’s close approach to Earth in the coming weeks provides optimal conditions to attempt communication, although scientists have no idea of the condition of the instruments on board. If unsuccessful, the spacecraft will swing by the moon and continue to orbit the sun.