Civilians have managed to take control of an old NASA satellite

A crew of space enthusiasts, including a former NASA employee, used their knowledge of satellite technology along with some spare parts to control an abandoned NASA satellite. It’s the perfect maker project with Kickstarter money providing the funding, eBay as the source of parts, an old MacBook as the console and a control center located in an abandoned McDonald’s in Mountain View, California. The crowdfunded mission will take the operational, but abandoned ISEE-3 satellite in an orbit around the sun, where it will report on solar weather data. Google is helping the team share its mission data publicly on the web in a variety of formats.