IBEX in safe mode
On February 18, 2023, NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) went into what the engineers have dubbed “contingency mode”, which seems to be a variation of safe mode, due to a computer issue that is preventing the spacecraft from accepting commands.
While fight [sic] computer resets have happened before, this time the team lost the ability to command the spacecraft during the subsequent reset recovery. The team also was unsuccessful in regaining command capability by resetting ground systems hardware and software.
Flight software still is running, and the spacecraft systems appear to be functional. However, while uplink signals are reaching the spacecraft, commands are not processing. If the mission team’s efforts to find and remedy the loss of command capability remain unsuccessful, IBEX will perform an autonomous reset and power cycle on March 4.
IBEX was designed to study the boundary between the interstellar space and the solar system, and do it somehow from Earth orbit.
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On February 18, 2023, NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) went into what the engineers have dubbed “contingency mode”, which seems to be a variation of safe mode, due to a computer issue that is preventing the spacecraft from accepting commands.
While fight [sic] computer resets have happened before, this time the team lost the ability to command the spacecraft during the subsequent reset recovery. The team also was unsuccessful in regaining command capability by resetting ground systems hardware and software.
Flight software still is running, and the spacecraft systems appear to be functional. However, while uplink signals are reaching the spacecraft, commands are not processing. If the mission team’s efforts to find and remedy the loss of command capability remain unsuccessful, IBEX will perform an autonomous reset and power cycle on March 4.
IBEX was designed to study the boundary between the interstellar space and the solar system, and do it somehow from Earth orbit.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
“ and do it somehow from Earth orbit.” Good one!
Minor edit at end of first paragraph: “from accepting commands”
Andi: I promised you such things will happen! Fixed. Thank you.
Mr Z.
Not your error. “The fight computer…”.
Checked the link. NASA posted it that way.
sippin_bourbon: Heh. Didn’t notice that. I had simply cut and pasted from the original. I have added “sic” after “fight” to make it clear the source of the typo.
Every time I see the word “ibex”, I can’t help but think of “43-man squamish”, a sports parody that appeared in MAD Magazine some 50+ years ago.
https://43-mansquamish.weebly.com/
The game ball is made of ibex hide stuffed with blue jay feathers.