What's nice about it is that it was launched almost 26 years ago, and it's STILL WORKING! Who says we can't make anything in America anymore...
WIND Spacecraft will give you entry into as much (too much) as you want to learn, including getting up-to-date solar wind data.
The other major project I worked on (twice) was HETE and HETE2, the first suffered an ignominious death due to not separating from the Pegasus rocket as it should have (a failed battery did it in), the second got into orbit and produced some great science on GRB's and the like.
I actually build most of the H2 buss and MIT experiments, even designed some of the parts and GSE. Pretty much the high point of my professional career to date. Not too shabby for a HS Voc-Tech grad...
The HETE-2 Satellite
And if I don't get a move on, it will remain the apogee. Still looking to top it...
Very very impressive indeed.
Those instruments are super important and the data gathered by WIND has been cited / used by 5000 peer reviewed papers + won tons of awards for mission success as late as 2017 I believe.
Brief time I spent at JPL kinda changed the "trajectory" of my life / light bulb moment that kept giving in a way.
It IS remarkable the science that goes on and gives usefully to lives of practically every citizen.
The HETE-2 Satellite/ space craft that looks like a lot of fun with all the different types of detectors and imagers. Some clever hacks there with linear sensors clustered on different surfaces at different orientations and then the use of controlled motion of the satellite to construct scanned imagery ~ Plus the X-ray stuff is mind blowing in of itself not just the Gamma Ray Burst detectors and approach to that. Very pioneering / seminal missions - that paved the way for some pretty elaborate (less reliable) solar / heliosphere based research missions. Of course my favorite (in that vein) is the STEREO A and STEREO B :-).
Also VERY cool that you have your hardware (and literal handy work) at Lagrange point 1. - 932,000 miles from Earth... So that's pretty much gonna be there at that "point" pretty much forever ? (or at least outlast humans ).
I've often felt sorry for some folks that worked on various space craft/ missions for a couple of decades to be just blown up on the launch pad / be aborted or find some chronic failure in critical systems heading out to Saturn or Mars. Similar things happened with ESA and the Titan mission , years and years worth of work resulting in an abrupt partial mission termination at the surface of Titan due to software uplink error in the code ? (Huygens Probe.) _---> (Not Cassini's fault .).
Also very cool you got to design and build some of the Ground Support Equipment (GSE) - that's quite a broad gamut/ super work and awesome they tapped into your
design engineering skills and experience / relied on that. Important stuff and it has to work !
One day you'll have to tell me the secrets of your various giant structural components/ and connecting rings for the ISS. Also super critical components.
I'm impressed as hell that anyone can make helicopter rotor parts for the DOD on a 3 axis machine as a private contractor...
@Milland thanks for sharing that I DO appreciate that, and if find myself up sh*t creek on "New" mechanisms I'll definitely seek you out - 2021 will be breaking a lot of new ground on many fronts.
I actually build most of the H2 buss and MIT experiments
^^^ No pressure at all just one of the most important systems that you don't want to fritz -out. (or get blamed for lol). + the collaboration with other countries and research groups.
I'd be like -"Are you sure this is right... IS this dimension really what you meant, are you sure that... and on and on and on " -have to keep a cool head / wits about you, obviously they must have placed tremendous trust in your abilities and sense, common sense and uncommonly GOOD sense - To me that's more important for design / devising things than necessarily an "Unfettered" imagination. (These days very rare qualities).
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Definitely one of the best adverts for MADE IN AMERICA and Bridgeport v2xt cnc milling machine I've ever seen
+ Helpful perspective on "risk" and risk taking - somewhat comforting I think.
+ Hopefully Happy Days at the Winklershop once they figure out how that all goes with their V2Xt...
I build legit satellite experiment packages on that mill, you can do fine work with them if you know you're doing...