What would you do with 150 m/s �V?

[Moon Goddess]

Alt Text: HACK THE STARS

So, no this isn't actually happening, (at least not publicly)

But lets say it say it was. The probe has about 150 m/s of DeltaV remaining and a interplanetary trajectory, imagine you're in control. What would you do?

[Nuke]

i dont think 150m/s is enough to get you anywhere.

[K^2]

If it's going to be passing by Earth, it might be enough to maneuver it for an Earth-Moon fly-by, boosting it up to a couple km/s, and that gives you great many possible targets for study.

[sgt_flyer]

@nuke, not if the probe is already on a sun orbit, ready to move inside one planet's SOI it should not cost much delta-v to fine-tune a gravity assist. from there, you can modify a lot your orbit if you are in position for multiple gravity assists real life probes have time for them they don't mind if they have to do several assists over the span of several years

[Moon Goddess]

Yeah it's all about using it as efficiently as possible, you could definitely grab the earth or moon as an assist and really go anywhere.

It's already designed for studying comets, I'd probably buzz some near earth asteroids.

Something I was reading said they may try a capture and bring it down to earth... I have no idea how we could even pull that off we the resources we have in 2014.

[Transits]

Maneuver it past the earth for gravity assist and go to Mars, in an orbit around Phobos, Due to the low gravity, getting into an orbit should be easy, and if all else fails, IMPACT PROBE

[Whirligig Girl]

Venus TENCHARACTERS

[Red Iron Crown]

A little more detail from the Wiki article:

On May 5, 1997, NASA ended the ICE mission, and ordered the probe shut down, with only a carrier signal left operating.

The ISEE-3/ICE downlink bit rate was nominally 2048 bit/s during the early part of the mission, and 1024 bit/s during the Giacobini-Zinner comet encounter. The bit rate then successively dropped to 512 bit/s (on December 9, 1985), 256 bit/s (on January 5, 1987), 128 bit/s (on January 24, 1989) and finally to 64 bit/s (on December 27, 1991).

As of January 1990, ICE was in a 355-day heliocentric orbit with an aphelion of 1.03 AU, a perihelion of 0.93 AU and an inclination of 0.1 degree. It may be possible to capture the spacecraft in 2014, when it again makes a close approach to Earth. If the craft is recovered, it has already been donated by NASA to the Smithsonian Institution.[4]

Further contact

In 1999, NASA made brief contact with ICE to verify its carrier signal.

On September 18, 2008, NASA, with the help of KinetX, successfully located ICE using the Deep Space Network after discovering that it had not been powered off after the 1999 contact. A status check revealed that all but one of its 13 experiments were still functioning, and it still has enough propellant for 150 m/s of ÃŽâ€v. NASA scientists considered reusing the probe to observe additional comets in 2017 or 2018.[5] Such a mission, however, would delay any attempt to capture the spacecraft until the 2040s.

ICE is currently in a trajectory that will bring it close to Earth on August 2014. [4] On February 4, 2014, the Goddard Space Flight Center announced that the Deep Space Network equipment necessary to transmit signals to the spacecraft had been decommissioned in 1999, and that replacing it was not economically feasible.

[Moon Goddess]

it has already been donated by NASA to the Smithsonian Institution..

Yeah, we're going to donate a satellite to you. Well, we don't exactly have it with us at the moment. What's that, nearby? No, I couldn't really say it's nearby either.

[Klingon Admiral]

Bring it on a Jupiter-impacting trajectory.

No way Galileo is gonna keep that reentry record.

[Rakaydos]

Let's hope it doesnt turn out like "Twitch Plays Pokemon"

[DonLorenzo]

It's just a little bit magical that that probe is still working and coming home, as it were. Disney movies could be made about it. It's human creators have turned their collective backs however. Could have teary songs and everything

[Moon Goddess]

It's just a little bit magical that that probe is still working and coming home, as it were. Disney movies could be made about it. It's human creators have turned their collective backs however. Could have teary songs and everything

Oh you'd really get teared up at this https://xkcd.com/695/

[DonLorenzo]

It crossed my mind It's funny how there's currently over a thousand xkcd and so often an appropriate one will come to mind, three or four words into google and you'll find it. And so many people on the internet are just like that. They're memorable I suppose

[Camacha]

I am not sure why you would equip a probe with an off button. Sure, power down to bare essentials, that makes sense, but to option to really turn it off can only lead to trouble.

'The cleaning lady did what now?'

[Superfluous J]

Oh you'd really get teared up at this https://xkcd.com/695/

I'm usually an XKCD fan, but that one never jibed with me. The thought that any robotic rover we'd send wouldn't be eternally excited about continuing to explore forever is laughable to me. You can make it a sad tale about a plucky rover eventually dying without making NASA sound like jerks.

[PTNLemay]

Is the comic using some sort of Hackers reference? I don't really get it.

[NGTOne]

Someone posted a forum thread on this topic a while back. Wonder if Randall read it, or it's just coincidence?

[DonLorenzo]

I am not sure why you would equip a probe with an off button. Sure, power down to bare essentials, that makes sense, but to option to really turn it off can only lead to trouble.

'The cleaning lady did what now?'

It is a bit odd yes. Maybe a remnant of cold-war thinking? Not leave operational assets lying around or something

[DonLorenzo]

Is the comic using some sort of Hackers reference? I don't really get it.

Yeah. In that movie (I think, it's been a while!) in the end one of them hacks a few buildings (rock on 90s computer magic) to spell out a (romantic?) message

[Streetwind]

While we are on the topic of veiled 90's hacker references... I invite you to look at the strip's number.

Dat Randall, more like 'Rascal' amirite?

[Winter Man]

Someone posted a forum thread on this topic a while back. Wonder if Randall read it, or it's just coincidence?

Probably, he's here somewhere.

[rkman]

go to Mars, in an orbit around Phobos, Due to the low gravity, getting into an orbit should be easy

Low gravity means low orbital speed, which means the difference in speed relative to the probe's interplanetary speed is higher than it would be if it would have to get in orbit around Mars - meaning getting in orbit around Phobos is harder, not easier.

What would be easy due to the low gravity is landing on Phobos from Phobos orbit.

[3_bit]

I think a kickstarter would be feasonable to bring it back...

Or a billionaire might want a remote-control spaceship to play with...

[sanoj688]

Oh you'd really get teared up at this https://xkcd.com/695/

Aww.. thanks for sharing