NASA's 36-year-old ISEE-3 retired spacecraft, recently reactivated by a private group of scientists and engineers, passed by the moon on Aug. 10 as part of its long journey around the sun.
It will be another 15 years before ISEE-3 comes this close to Earth again, according to Yahoo News.
During the flyby, which occurred at around 11:16 a.m., members of the ISEE-3 Reboot Project collected scientific data from the spacecraft's instruments. The data will eventually be made available to the public.
On Aug. 8, the ISEE-3 announced that they had partnered with Google to create a new website for the spacecraft. A Google Hangout was conducted with team members and NASA representative at 10:30 a.m. PDT before the flyby.
The team led by Dennis Wingo, chief executive of California-based Skycorp Incorporated, and Keith Cowing, editor of the websites NASAWatch and SpaceRef, worked for months on returning the spacecraft to an orbit close to the Earth's to allow it to resume its original mission, which was observing the solar environment.
The team raises around $160,000 in a crowdfunding campaign, redeveloped the capability to communicate with the spacecraft, and got permission from NASA to command the spacecraft.
They successfully took control over the spacecraft shortly after.
The team had hoped to return the spacecraft to Earth's orbit, where it would monitor solar wind and radiation. They had to abandon that plan when the attempts to fire the thrusters failed.
There wasn't enough nitrogen pressurent left to force fuel through the spacecraft's thrusters, according to Yahoo.
The team will continue to collect science data as the spacecraft continues along its sun-centric orbit.
Radio dishes on the ground will pick up ISEE-3's science signals for "months to come," according to Yahoo. The Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico will most likely lose contact with the spacecraft sometime in 2015.
ISEE-3 was around 9,693 miles away from the Moon's surface at its closest approach this weekend.
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