Civilians seize control of satellite from within abandoned McDonald's
Posted by: Jon Ben-Mayor on 08/12/2014 02:20 AM
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The civilians are actually ex-NASA employees, but this does not detract from the fact that these space McPirates took control of a satellite using a flat screen and a few eBay purchased parts; the goal is to have an open source satellite for anyone to use.
The ISEE-3 is a disco-era satellite that used to measure space weather like solar wind and radiation, but went out of commission decades ago. Now, a small team led by Mr. Cowing has taken control of the satellite with NASA’s silent blessing.
Until now, when NASA wanted to conduct research, they’d collect data and disappear with it for a few months before publishing. But the data from ISEE-3 is going to be available to anyone who wants access to it. It’s a spacecraft funded by the public, and available for the public.
“We’re allowing anybody who is interested and has a computer to be able to do something with the data,” Mr. Cowing said.
Source: BetaBeat
The ISEE-3 is a disco-era satellite that used to measure space weather like solar wind and radiation, but went out of commission decades ago. Now, a small team led by Mr. Cowing has taken control of the satellite with NASA’s silent blessing.
Until now, when NASA wanted to conduct research, they’d collect data and disappear with it for a few months before publishing. But the data from ISEE-3 is going to be available to anyone who wants access to it. It’s a spacecraft funded by the public, and available for the public.
“We’re allowing anybody who is interested and has a computer to be able to do something with the data,” Mr. Cowing said.
Source: BetaBeat
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