Students crashed NASA's satellite

NASA asked students of The University of Colorado to destroy their own satellite. ICESat (Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation) stopped working after seven years of working and there wasn't any solution to restart it back. This satellite was collecting informations about the thickness of ice in the different parts of the Earth, but, from unknown reason, it stopped working. Scientists decided to destroy it.

NASA - ICESat

Students have had very difficult and unusual task. They had to find and possible way to use last fuel container of the satellite, to guide it just into to the Barents Sea. Team was formed from many students and scientists. They have managed to make a command for the satellite, which was took back to Earth in 30th of august. 

Team worked very hard. They had to make complicated computations, to determine, where the satellite is and predict it's trajectory. They've worked for seven days in the week, until plan of destroying the satellite was ready. 

Whole operation was ended successfully and students gained much experience. They worked for NASA and that's quite cool in my opinion. This is why I'll study at the Electronics and Informatics department on my University of Technology in Gdańsk

If you ever wondered how to calculate the orbits of bodies and their trajectories, we have a whole page dedicated to the equations.