Engineers failed to figure out how to fix fuel system issues on a retired ISEE-3 satellite recently, making it impossible to start up thrusts and alter the probe's flight plan.
ISEE-3 Reboot Project operates out of a converted McDonald's restaurant at NASA's Ames Research Center in California.
Engineers working on the issue said they have shifted ISEE-3 to science mode, and will now collect data and information from it for as long as possible, according to NBC News.
As ISEE-3 reached Earth's orbit, on a flyby set for August 10, former NASA astrobiologist and spokesman for ISEE-3 Keith Cowing and others won the right to take control of the satellite.
The satellite's thrusters stopped working on July 8 however as the team was preparing to guide the satellite into a new orbital path.
The team spent over two hours trying to figure out the issue by turning fuel valves on and off, but when the thrusters failed to operate the team said the satellite's fuel system had lost critical pressure.
The satellite uses hydrazine fuel, which is stored in 8 tanks and kept under pressure by nitrogen gas. When the team instructed ISEE-3 to open a fuel valve, the gas pushes hydrazine through fuel lines and into a catalyst, according to NBC News.
Once it reaches the catalyst, the hydrazine breaks down and develops into an invisible puff of hot gas that makes the spacecraft move.
It would take 432 puffs of gas to redirect the satellite into Earth's orbit, but without fuel pressure, the thrusters won't fire, according to NBC News.
The 36-year-old ISEE space satellite was used for exploratory missions after being launched in 1978. It was used to study how the stream of charged particles flowing from the sun, or solar wind, interacts with Earth's magnetic field, according to a release issued by Sky & Telescope.
Once it completed its primary mission, the probe was renamed the International Comet Explorer, and was given new targets to study, like Halley's Comet as it passed Earth back in March 1986.
The probe was assigned to investigate solar storms, known as coronal mass ejections, until 1997, when NASA deactivated the spacecraft.
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