Author Topic: ISEE-3 / ICE return to Earth and possible reactivation - Success!  (Read 49948 times)

Offline catdlr

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« Last Edit: 07/10/2014 08:46 pm by catdlr »
Tony De La Rosa, ...I'm no Feline Dealer!! I move mountains.  but I'm better known for "I think it's highly sexual." Japanese to English Translation.

Offline Moe Grills

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Time to archive this topic.

Offline Star One

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Offline NovaSilisko

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Sounds like they're still going to use the spacecraft for science as long as they can, they just can't manuever it into a halo orbit now.

Quote
ISEE3 Reboot Project @ISEE3Reboot

Some people are being quoted as saying that we should shut #ISEE3 down. Not going to happen. We've only just begun using this spacecraft.


Quote
ISEE3 Reboot Project @ISEE3Reboot

.@engadget #ISEE3 is now alive & returning science data & will do so for years to come. We'll get/share that data no matter where ISEE-3 is
« Last Edit: 07/10/2014 09:21 pm by NovaSilisko »

Offline Jester

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Still might be some options left...

ISEE3 Reboot Project ‏@ISEE3Reboot

We have spent the day consulting with world class propulsion experts and have some solid plans for tackling our #ISEE3 propulsion issues.


Online sdsds

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The key point from that (IMHO ;) ):
Quote
One of the project volunteers has suggested that perhaps the nitrogen isn’t actually gone. It may in fact still be there, but dissolved in with the hydrazine.

If that’s the case, Wingo says, ISEE-3 could potentially repressurize the propellant by powering up the tank heaters, raising the temperature up perhaps 10 degrees from the roughly 25 °C where it stands now. "If [the idea] has any merit, then we could turn the heaters on and drive at least some of the nitrogen out of solution. That would give us more pressure that just heating the tanks themselves," Wingo says.
— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 —

Offline AJA

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I think they've concluded that the solubility of N2 in N2H2 isn't that much.

There was a suggestion to simply leave the latch valves open and have the centrifugal force push out the hydrazine.

I think this'd somewhat work even without the centrifugal force. If the heaters are working, and maintaining a temperature of 25 °C, then the Hydrazine would start to off-gas and diffuse down the concentration gradient (and therefore... through the thrusters, since the valves are open). As it reaches the thruster, some of it might still undergo the nominal catalytic decomposition, if it comes into contact with the catalyst.

I'm not sure whether this'll result in a pogo effect though. Also, this is an aside - does the Isp of an engine depend on the mass flow rate?

Offline avollhar

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Never give up, never surrender: ISEE-3 flight team analyses situation and offers possible solution.

http://spacecollege.org/isee3/we-are-borg-crowdsourced-isee-3-engineering-and-the-collective-mind-of-the-internet.html#more

Next pass for commanding is tomorrow, Jul 16,  1619-1903h UTC. Keep your fingers crossed!

Offline david1971

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This dovetails nicely with the local crowdsourcing efforts to repair SpaceX's video.
I flew on SOFIA four times.

Offline avollhar

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Let's hope it equals in the outcome!

Offline denis

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I think they've concluded that the solubility of N2 in N2H2 isn't that much.

There was a suggestion to simply leave the latch valves open and have the centrifugal force push out the hydrazine.

I think this'd somewhat work even without the centrifugal force. If the heaters are working, and maintaining a temperature of 25 °C, then the Hydrazine would start to off-gas and diffuse down the concentration gradient (and therefore... through the thrusters, since the valves are open). As it reaches the thruster, some of it might still undergo the nominal catalytic decomposition, if it comes into contact with the catalyst.

I'm not sure whether this'll result in a pogo effect though. Also, this is an aside - does the Isp of an engine depend on the mass flow rate?

Usually, the Isp will decrease slightly at lower presurre and mass flow rate. See for example these 1N thrusters: http://cs.astrium.eads.net/sp/spacecraft-propulsion/hydrazine-thrusters/1n-thruster.html
They have an Isp between 200 and 223s for input pressure of 5.5 to 22 bar (mass flow from 0.14 to 0.44 /s)

However, if you go much below the nominal range and if you get only a small input pressure, I don't think it is still true and you might have a pretty inefficient thruster.

Also, on an hydrazine thruster, you normally rely on the decomposition reaction of the hydrazine to heat up the catalyst, which is needed for it to work properly. If you have a very low output flow, you might not heat it up enough, and you might end up just exhausting non-decomposed hydrazine, with much lower Isp (kind of a cold gas thruster)

(these thrusters have a catalyst bed heater, but this is used only to get correct start-up conditions before
switching on the thruster, I don't know if you can keep them on all the time, in case of very low mass flow rate)

Offline russianhalo117

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From the email I received:
A somewhat unfortunate, yet exciting update from the ISEE-3 Team:


Announcing the ISEE-3 Interplanetary Citizen Science Mission
 
After a successful reawakening the venerable ISEE-3 spacecraft is about to begin the first interplanetary citizen science mission.
 
In April 2014 our team set about bringing the 36 year old  ISEE-3 (International Sun Earth Explorer 3) spacecraft back into science operations. Our plan was to contact the spacecraft, evaluate its health, command it to resume normal operations, fire its engines, and resume the orbit it originally occupied in 1978. Once science operations resumed, our plan was to make the data openly available to citizen scientists - in fact, anyone, anywhere - as soon as we received it from the spacecraft.
 
This task required the ISEE-3 Reboot Team to recreate hardware, software, and documentation that had been discarded decades ago, reassemble it into a operational form, organize an international mission team of volunteer scientists and engineers, raise all of our own funds (privately) to do all this, and then implement a rescue and reboot attempt within a matter of weeks.
 
NASA gave us the green light and we successfully took command of ISEE-3 just 6 weeks after we began our project.  We then brought its basic systems back online for the first time in decades.  Shortly, the spacecraft will resume science operations with the half dozen science experiments that are still operational.
 
We have completely accomplished all of our original goals except for one: firing the ISEE-3 propulsion system in a sufficient fashion to alter its trajectory.  We did operate the propulsion system briefly so as to correct the spin of the spacecraft, and to start the trajectory correction maneuver. The propulsion system works fine. The problem is that there is no longer any Nitrogen pressurant left in its tanks to allow it to work.
 
36 years and more than 30 billion miles have taken its toll on the spacecraft’s propulsion system. We have exhausted every option to bring the engines online so as to conduct the correction maneuver required to place it in its planned orbit. Without the pressurant it just won’t work.
 
While our original goal was to place ISEE-3 in a L-1 “halo” orbit, it will now do a flyby of the Moon and resume an orbit around the sun - an orbit nearly identical to Earth’s. We have begun the process of shutting down systems that are no longer needed and reconfiguring ISEE-3 to maximize science operations.  We are also implementing plans that will allow us to listen to its science data no matter where it goes. 
 
We will be beginning the “ISEE-3 Interplanetary Citizen Science Mission” on August 10, 2014 as the spacecraft flies by the Moon. We have a functional space craft that can do science and is already returning new data. All of our original citizen science objectives remain unchanged and are ready for implementation. In fact, we’ll be announcing some new partnerships shortly that will serve to turbocharge our efforts in this regard.
 
This will be  the first citizen science, crowd funded, crowd sourced, interplanetary space science mission.   A more detailed summary of recent activities and our partnership team will be posted at http://spacecollege.org/isee3
 
This project would not have been possible without the help of many people and organizations around the world.  Most notably (a partial list) the alumni of the ISEE-3/ICE mission, NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, NASA Deep Space Network, Arecibo Observatory, AMSAT-DL, Bochum Observatory, SETI Institute, Kinetix, Ettus Research, Space Exploration Engineering, Applied Defense, Dirk Fisher Electronics, National Instruments, AR Research, SpaceRef Interactive, Skycorp Inc, Space College Foundation, NASA Science Mission Directorate, NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Headquarters, National Science Foundation and Morehead State University.
 
We would also like to thank everyone we have not mentioned who has participated in phase one of this paradigm shifting project and look forward to many years of science data from a newly rebooted ISEE-3.
 
Most importantly we want to thank our 2,238 donors who invested $159,602 on our team’s crazy idea. Your spacecraft is now ready to “do science again”.
 
Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing
Co-leads
ISEE-3 Reboot Project
 
For more information:
 
ISEE-3 Reboot Project website: http://spacecollege.org/isee3
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ISEE3Reboot
Google+: https://plus.google.com/110871408384252629393/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/isee3reboot
Copyright © 2014 SpaceRef Interactive Inc., All rights reserved.
ISEE-3 Reboot Project donor.

Our mailing address is:
SpaceRef Interactive Inc.
P.O. Box 3569
Reston, VA 20195-1569
« Last Edit: 07/24/2014 05:50 pm by russianhalo117 »

Offline JasonAW3

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At just over $150,000, this will be one of the cheapest interplanetary space missions in history, if not THE cheapest!!
My God!  It's full of universes!

Offline russianhalo117

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From the email I received:
A somewhat unfortunate, yet exciting update from the ISEE-3 Team:


Announcing the ISEE-3 Interplanetary Citizen Science Mission
 
After a successful reawakening the venerable ISEE-3 spacecraft is about to begin the first interplanetary citizen science mission.
 
In April 2014 our team set about bringing the 36 year old  ISEE-3 (International Sun Earth Explorer 3) spacecraft back into science operations. Our plan was to contact the spacecraft, evaluate its health, command it to resume normal operations, fire its engines, and resume the orbit it originally occupied in 1978. Once science operations resumed, our plan was to make the data openly available to citizen scientists - in fact, anyone, anywhere - as soon as we received it from the spacecraft.
 
This task required the ISEE-3 Reboot Team to recreate hardware, software, and documentation that had been discarded decades ago, reassemble it into a operational form, organize an international mission team of volunteer scientists and engineers, raise all of our own funds (privately) to do all this, and then implement a rescue and reboot attempt within a matter of weeks.
 
NASA gave us the green light and we successfully took command of ISEE-3 just 6 weeks after we began our project.  We then brought its basic systems back online for the first time in decades.  Shortly, the spacecraft will resume science operations with the half dozen science experiments that are still operational.
 
We have completely accomplished all of our original goals except for one: firing the ISEE-3 propulsion system in a sufficient fashion to alter its trajectory.  We did operate the propulsion system briefly so as to correct the spin of the spacecraft, and to start the trajectory correction maneuver. The propulsion system works fine. The problem is that there is no longer any Nitrogen pressurant left in its tanks to allow it to work.
 
36 years and more than 30 billion miles have taken its toll on the spacecraft’s propulsion system. We have exhausted every option to bring the engines online so as to conduct the correction maneuver required to place it in its planned orbit. Without the pressurant it just won’t work.
 
While our original goal was to place ISEE-3 in a L-1 “halo” orbit, it will now do a flyby of the Moon and resume an orbit around the sun - an orbit nearly identical to Earth’s. We have begun the process of shutting down systems that are no longer needed and reconfiguring ISEE-3 to maximize science operations.  We are also implementing plans that will allow us to listen to its science data no matter where it goes. 
 
We will be beginning the “ISEE-3 Interplanetary Citizen Science Mission” on August 10, 2014 as the spacecraft flies by the Moon. We have a functional space craft that can do science and is already returning new data. All of our original citizen science objectives remain unchanged and are ready for implementation. In fact, we’ll be announcing some new partnerships shortly that will serve to turbocharge our efforts in this regard.
 
This will be  the first citizen science, crowd funded, crowd sourced, interplanetary space science mission.   A more detailed summary of recent activities and our partnership team will be posted at http://spacecollege.org/isee3
 
This project would not have been possible without the help of many people and organizations around the world.  Most notably (a partial list) the alumni of the ISEE-3/ICE mission, NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, NASA Deep Space Network, Arecibo Observatory, AMSAT-DL, Bochum Observatory, SETI Institute, Kinetix, Ettus Research, Space Exploration Engineering, Applied Defense, Dirk Fisher Electronics, National Instruments, AR Research, SpaceRef Interactive, Skycorp Inc, Space College Foundation, NASA Science Mission Directorate, NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Headquarters, National Science Foundation and Morehead State University.
 
We would also like to thank everyone we have not mentioned who has participated in phase one of this paradigm shifting project and look forward to many years of science data from a newly rebooted ISEE-3.
 
Most importantly we want to thank our 2,238 donors who invested $159,602 on our team’s crazy idea. Your spacecraft is now ready to “do science again”.
 
Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing
Co-leads
ISEE-3 Reboot Project
 
For more information:
 
ISEE-3 Reboot Project website: http://spacecollege.org/isee3
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ISEE3Reboot
Google+: https://plus.google.com/110871408384252629393/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/isee3reboot
Copyright © 2014 SpaceRef Interactive Inc., All rights reserved.
ISEE-3 Reboot Project donor.

Our mailing address is:
SpaceRef Interactive Inc.
P.O. Box 3569
Reston, VA 20195-1569
Can we please get a mod to update the title to ISEE-3/ICE: ISEE-3R Interplanetary Citizen Science Mission.
Thanks, RH117

Offline Jester

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