NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) allowed controllers to reset the computer on March 2, agency officials said Monday (opens in new tab) (March 6), ending three weeks of trouble trying to reach the spacecraft.
The mission team performed a “fire code reset,” or external reset, of the spacecraft, allowing controllers to regain control of the unresponsive spacecraft two full days before IBEX was scheduled to perform an autonomous reset and power cycle on Saturday (March 4). .
Everything is back to normal now, agency officials added. “IBEX telemetry shows the spacecraft is fully operational and operating normally.”
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NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer was launched in October 2008 to study the outer edge of the heliosphere, focusing on the “bubble” that represents the boundary between the Sun’s environment and interstellar space.
The spacecraft fully mapped the heliosphere in its first year after launch and acquires images of the entire sky every six months. Its most famous discovery is revealing a dense region of particles called the “IBEX band”.
The agency first announced problems with “regaining command capability” in late February, but stressed that the spacecraft itself was healthy despite its computer resetting unexpectedly and putting IBEX into alert mode. “Flight software is still running and spacecraft systems appear to be functional,” NASA officials said in a Feb. 24 update (opens in new tab).
IBEX is part of a network of spacecraft that study the solar wind (or constant stream of particles from our sun) along with the sun to better understand how the heliosphere shapes our solar system.
The spacecraft has spent 15 years in space and continued work for more than a decade since its primary mission ended in 2011.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why am I taller? (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).