NASA announced earlier this week that its Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft has started functioning normally after the mission team successfully reset it. The mission team performed a “fire code reset,” or external reset, of the spacecraft that allowed controllers to regain control of the unresponsive spacecraft two full days before IBEX. NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer was launched in October 2008 to study the outer edge of the heliosphere, focusing on the “bubble” that marks the boundary between the sun’s environment and interstellar space. IBEX is part of a network of spacecraft that studies the solar wind (or a constant stream of particles from our sun) along with the sun itself to gain a better understanding of how the heliosphere shapes our solar system. The spacecraft had spent 15 years in space, and had been operating for more than a decade when its main mission ended in 2011.