NASA could not save ISEE-3

ISEE-3 apparatus

NASA has developed a project for which it was planned to return the ISEE-3 spacecraft to Earth orbit, which had exhausted its resource. It was launched into a heliocentric orbit in 1978. The initial purpose of the launch was to obtain data on the interaction of the solar wind with the magnetic field of our planet. It was then used to study comets.

Almost seventeen years ago, the agency already wrote it off. But interest in the machine suddenly resumed six years ago because it responded to a signal sent toward it.

ISEE-3 has not yet been rescued. The reason is that experts failed to start the propulsion system due to problems in the fuel system. The project participants claim that the fuel system itself is not damaged, but there is a leak of nitrogen, due to which hydrozine enters the system.

Despite the fact that the spacecraft, which did not have time to fulfill all the tasks set by the mission before it, has not yet been able to return to orbit, NASA scientists, unlike skeptics who have already said goodbye to it, hope that they will be able to eliminate the existing problems to bring it into Earth orbit. If their hopes do not come true, then it can be used to solve scientific problems in other parts of our solar system. The encounter with the Earth will take place in seventeen years, but it will fly by the moon very soon - on the tenth of August.

Source: planetologia.ru/