A picture of one of the original SOHO posters.
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Image courtesy of NASA
Contact with SOHO Re-established
News story originally written on August 6, 1998
Contact with the SOHO spacecraft was re-established August 3rd following six long weeks of silence. The signals that are being received are intermittent and contain no real data in them. But still, these signals give engineers increasing hope that SOHO can be returned to full scientific capabilities.
The signals that are being sent right now are just too short for ground-based scientists and engineers to be able to "lock-on" to the signal. The hope is that the onboard batteries will be able to be charged, so the spacecraft will have continuous power and thus capability to send a continuous signal.
"Recovery will be a slow and careful operation" said ESA's Head of Science Projects, John Credland, "The main thing is that the spacecraft is now responding to us and we will take one step at a time to bring the spacecraft into a more favourable attitude before assessing any damage which may have been caused by its six-week unforeseen hibernation".
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