IceMission 1.36 KB
<h2>ICE Mission</h2> 
The <b><i>International Cometary Explorer (ICE)</i></b> spacecraft 
(designed and launched as the <b><i>International Sun/Earth Explorer 3 (ISEE-3)</i></b> satellite),
was launched August 12, 1978, into a heliocentric orbit. It was one of three spacecraft, 
along with the mother/daughter pair of ISEE-1 and ISEE-2, built for the International Sun-Earth Explorer 
(ISEE) program, a joint effort by NASA and ESRO/ESA to study the interaction between the Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind.
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ISEE-3 was the first spacecraft to be placed in a halo 
orbit at the L1 Earth-Sun Lagrangian point. Renamed ICE, it 
became the first spacecraft to visit a comet, passing through the tail 
of Comet Giacobini-Zinner within about 7,800 km  of the nucleus.
NASA suspended routine contact with ISEE-3 in 1997, and made brief status checks in 1999 and 2008.
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On May 29, 2014, two-way communication with the spacecraft was reestablished by the ISEE-3 
Reboot Project, an unofficial group[4] with support from the Skycorp company.
On July 2, 2014, they fired the thrusters for the first time since 1987. 
However, later firings of the thrusters failed, apparently due to a lack of nitrogen 
pressurant in the fuel tanks.[8][9] The project team will pursue an alternative plan to use the spacecraft to "collect scientific data and send it back to Earth."