Watch the Deep Space Network Talk to Reclaimed Spacecraft, io9
"I am fascinated by all of this -- using new technology to impersonate old technology to rebuild communications with a spacecraft that would otherwise be space junk, finding private partnerships to pursue scientific curiosity, and getting to watch all of it in real-time. Thank you to everyone who helped make it happen, from the engineers working in their converted McDonald's to the people scrounging up abandoned technical documentation to everyone who chipped in funding to make this possible. This is a "We're living in the future." moment that fills me with glee every time I think about it."
Zombie Spacecraft Rescue Planned by Private Group, National Geographic
"A crew of NASA retirees, young hackers, and seasoned engineers has an audacious dream to rescue an abandoned spacecraft that has been coasting, unwanted and unloved, through the solar system since the mid-1990s. Originally known as the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3), the ship was launched in 1978 to study the stream of charged particles flowing from the sun. NASA retired the craft in 1997 and has pretty much ignored it ever since. But in May, fans of the zombie ship reestablished contact with it--the first time that a private group has ever controlled a spacecraft beyond Earth's orbit. On Saturday, the team, funded by nearly $160,000 from crowdsourcing, will test the spacecraft's steering jets."
