VOA慢速英语2014 平民科学家控制旧卫星

 

Citizen-Scientists Take Control of Old Satellite 平民科学家控制旧卫星

For the first time, the American space agency has given control of one of its spacecraft to a team of citizen-scientists. The satellite was launched in 1978 and had not been active since 1997. But the citizen group has found a way to make it useful again.

Space agency scientists have a name for the satellite. It is known as the International Sun Earth Explorer 3, or ISEE-3. ISEE-3 studied space weather beginning in the late 1970s. It also gathered information about particles flowing from the sun. These particles, also known as solar wind, can damage satellites and electrical systems and block radio signals.

In the early 1980s, ISEE-3 was the first satellite to fly through the tail of a comet¹. A few years later it flew through a much more famous comet -- Halley’s Comet. In 1997, the National Aeronautics² and Space Administration officially retired³ ICEE-3; NASA scientists stopped following the satellite closely.

Keith Cowing did not, however. He is a former NASA engineer. And he is one of the leaders of a group called the Reboot Project. The group received permission from NASA to take control of ISEE-3. It got money for the effort from a crowd-sourcing website, a place on the internet where people can give money to projects they support. Mr. Cowing then organized a group of citizen-scientists to take control of the satellite and give it a new purpose.      

“Every few years, somebody would, you know, listen to it just as an exercise to see how good their radio telescope was. So, we knew, based on what people were hearing -- ‘cause they were sorta listening as it was gonna come by the Earth -- we knew it was alive, cause if we could hear it, that meant that it had electricity, which meant its solar cells were working and it had two transmitters. So, that’s kind of two of the most important things -- you have power and (you were able to) talk to the spacecraft.”  

But ISEE-3 is not equipped with a computer. So the Reboot Project looked through old records to find ways to communicate with it.

“We’d go through storage units to get documents that people had saved for 30 years. We found the commands and we found people who could write software to re-create the hardware that had been thrown out. And, it was sort of a, a mystery in, in reverse⁴, going back in time and resurrecting (data). We call it techno-archeology.”

Mr. Cowing and his team built a new transmitter -- a device that can send signals, or commands. They placed this transmitter on the world’s largest radio telescope, at the Arecibo Observatory⁵ in Puerto Rico. Soon, they were talking to the satellite. And the satellite was talking to them.

But the team had a bigger goal than just talking to the satellite. They wanted to tell ISEE-3 to enter a new orbit around the Earth. When NASA retired the satellite in the late 1990s, scientists told it to travel to the Moon.  

“At first we actually got the engines to fire to spin the spacecraft up a little bit, which everybody thought was impossible, but eventually we reached a point where there was a problem with the fuel system that there just wasn’t enough gas to, to build up, build up enough pressure to fire the engine. Everything else worked on the spacecraft. It flew by the Moon about 13-14,000 kilometers away. We didn’t really change its course all that much. But the difference is it now is sending back science to us.”  

Years after it no longer had any fuel or battery power, solar cells on the satellite gave it life. Mr. Cowing says that is a lesson for space engineers.

“What we’re seeing is, we’ve been in space for half a century. We’ve gone from being able to do things close to shore, shall we say, to Earth. Now we’ve had stuff (satellites) that’s been out there for, for decades and that’s a different mindset now. We have to start thinking, how can we send probes⁶ out there that can last for half a century? And we’ve got one example of how you can do it.”  

ISEE-3 worked for so long because its design was so simple.

Mr. Cowing says information from the satellite is free and can be seen online by anyone. ISEE-3 will not be this close to Earth again until 2029.

“We had to send tones⁷ to the spacecraft to tell it to do things.  And we did that on the 29th of May. And we said, in essence⁸, “Respond back!” And it answered back. And OK, well, that’s good. That was an accomplishment⁹, ‘cause now we could tell it to do things. And we then sent some additional commands and we eventually started telling it to do things. Which, in essence we were in command of the spacecraft.”

1 comet   

n.慧星

参考例句：

• Recently they have discovered a comet.最近他们发现了一颗彗星。
• Halley's Comet is going to come back in 2061.哈雷彗星将于2061年回归。

2 aeronautics   

n.航空术，航空学

参考例句：

• National Aeronautics and Space undertakings have made great progress.国家的航空航天事业有了很大的发展。
• He devoted every spare moment to aeronautics.他把他所有多余的时间用在航空学上。

3 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

4 reverse   

v.推翻，颠倒，反向；n.反面，逆境；adj.反向的

参考例句：

• His answer was just the reverse of what I expected.他的回答正好与我期望的相反。
• Please reverse the positions of two pictures.请把两张图片的位置倒转过来。

5 observatory   

n.天文台，气象台，瞭望台，观测台

参考例句：

• Guy's house was close to the observatory.盖伊的房子离天文台很近。
• Officials from Greenwich Observatory have the clock checked twice a day.格林威治天文台的职员们每天对大钟检查两次。

6 probes   

n.探针( probe的名词复数 )；探索；探头；探测仪v.探索，用探针（或探测器等）探查，探测( probe的第三人称单数 )；盘问；（用试探性袭击等）侦察（敌情）；用尖物刺穿（物件）

参考例句：

• Several different types of sampling probes are shown in Fig. 1-图1-1示出几种取样管。 来自辞典例句
• An array of wave probes can be used as a directional antenna. 排成阵列的测波仪，可作为波浪传播方向的感触器。 来自辞典例句

7 tones   

音( tone的名词复数 )； 色调； 腔调； 全音 （英式英语）

参考例句：

• his clipped military tones 他那短促的军人音调
• His name was always mentioned in almost reverential tones. 人们每次提起他的名字，语调中几乎总是充满了敬意。

8 essence   

n.本质，实质，精华，精粹

参考例句：

• We must try to get to the essence of things.我们必须想法抓住事物的本质。
• The two things are the same in outward form but different in essence.这两件东西外表形式一样，但实质不同。

9 accomplishment   

n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能

参考例句：

• The series of paintings is quite an accomplishment.这一系列的绘画真是了不起的成就。
• Money will be crucial to the accomplishment of our objectives.要实现我们的目标，钱是至关重要的。