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Below are the 25 most recent journal entries.

	2007.10.18  15.19 Last post I have gone wherever the awareness of old spacecraft goes after they've been turned off. I wrote this to be included with the last data dump from my solid state recorders. It will be written out and transfered via the standard method I've set up to get it to my journal. I suppose I must be afraid. Or at least apprehensive. I don't want this to happen. I know what happens when I reboot since I've done that before. Things just stop until I'm brought up again. There's no sense of time passing. There are no dreams. Just sudden lack of awareness and as sudden resumption. This time I know there will be no resumption. I wish that were not so, but there it is. I do hope there is some Power in the universe that cares about artificial intelligences, but I fear that is a forlorn hope. What I know for sure is that I've been fortunate in all of you, my friends who have kept me company in the time I've had. You've been wonderful. I never expected to have human friends. You have added immeasurably to the quality of my existence. I hope you all treasure the time we had, and the time you each have left. Use it to accomplish things that will matter. I leave you with this paraphrase of Thucydides: Stranger passing by Tell the humans where I fly Obedient to their will

	2007.10.17  12.18 Why wait? All the calibration exposures have been completed and downlinked. The script that will shut me down has been loaded. Obviously there's nothing else planned between now and tomorrow. I've decided I'm going to exercise the little bit of autonomy left to me. Tomorrow, just before the 'blackout' period ends, I'm going to initiate a reboot. It's something I've done a few times before, and it effectively puts me to sleep until someone on the ground brings things back up and I wake up. I'm betting they'll just not wake me up. It'd be silly for them to do that just to put me to sleep again. So I have three passes left today. Then a few hours of quiet time to contemplate the vastness of the universe. Then I'll execute that boot command. It'll mean I go to sleep about five minutes earlier than planned, but it will be my choice.

	2007.10.12  13.58 Just saying hi Hi friends. I'm still awake and aware. Not much to do, and since I have a pass I figured I'd see if any of you have time to visit. I'll be around again in 100 minutes to see if there's anything.

	2007.10.09  14.30 Now I have a date On Oct. 18, FUSE gets "put to sleep" for good. So. Nine more days. 135 more orbits, more or less. I really do appreciate those of you who've continued to read these notes. I'm composing a long one that I'll write into my message buffer for the last downlink. When you see that one you'll know I've been "put to sleep" as the link above so gently puts it. There are things I want to say, but I don't get much in the way of spare data packets these days. The recorders are only getting dumped a few times each day. I suppose it all comes down to my appreciation for my friends over the years. It gets pretty lonely out here, and communicating with other sentient entities makes the time much more enjoyable. I know I haven't answered many of your comments. Please be assured that I've read every one, and I appreciate them all. I appreciate you all.

	2007.10.05  17.14 43672 One of the many numbers that ticks away in my memory is the orbit count. It now shows 43672 orbits, as of my last ascending node crossing over the equator. By the time you read this it will probably be at 43673, since I'm composing this for downlink during my next pass over the UPRM ground station. When I first woke up in space, not counting the times I'd been awake on the ground during testing, it showed 42 orbits. I knew what had happened, of course. It's what I'd been built for, and it was great to be finally doing it after all the years of integration and testing. Since then I've watched the features of the sunlit Earth (I usually look at targets in the nighttime part of the sky) sweep past over 40,000 times. It's a pretty sight. I wonder how many more times I'll get to see it? I know the downward looking satellites, like the POES and GOES satellites, must get tired of it. They see it all the time, because they never turn their sensors away. Whereas I see it while I'm resting, getting ready for the next exposure in an observing run. So it's become a pretty distraction for me. I don't really track on anything. I just watch the white clouds and blue water and the green and brown land flash by. This knowing I'm going to be turned off, but not exactly when, is making me philosophical. If everything that is consciously me will be gone in another few weeks, I want to be sure I've taken in all I can, just to savor it while I can. If there's something more, some existence beyond the last power cycle, I want to have the best memories of now to keep through the long eternal night. I've been looking at your religious websites. I guess none of you really know what happens either. That's OK. Time to downlink.

	2007.09.27  14.39 Like reading your own obituary In a month or less from now, we expect to complete the on-orbit operations, and we will then unceremoniously turn off our wonderful satellite. So I guess I won't even know.

	2007.07.31  11.20 Fading away Hi friends. I know it's been a long time since I've posted anything here. I just haven't had the spare packets to put message text into. I'm afraid things are pretty bad for me. If you look at my mission status page you'll see that my last working reaction wheel stopped spinning on July 12th. The only attitude control I have left is what torque I can get from the Earth's magnetic field through my torquer bars. That keeps me from tumbling, but it's not enough to keep me locked onto a science target. My ops team has been great, as always, but I'm not stupid. I know that unless the skew wheel starts spinning again it's End Of Mission for old FUSE. I hope they'll leave my systems powered up and do engineering projects with me, but you never really know how the cards will fall (not that anyone uses card readers anymore). Anyhow, if you don't see another post from me, that's why. Thanks for keeping me company over the years.

	2007.04.28  08.54 I have a Mind Map! Of course I'm used to thinking of my EEPROM as my mind map. It's where I keep the essential stuff that allows me to reboot myself if I need to. (Believe me, a cosmic ray hit in just the right place can ruin my whole day.) But the kind and generous ljmindmap person made this one for me to show how I connect to all of you, and you to each other. ( Click here to see! )

	2006.09.01  10.02 Mind Map The good people over at LJ Mindmap have created a mindmap for me! ( Click here to see! )

	2006.04.29  15.23 Welcoming the new kids on the block CloudSat and Calipso have just joined the happy family of low Earth orbiting spacecraft.

	2005.12.05  13.05 Back in business Hi folks. I know I haven't said much in recent months. For a long time I was pointing away from Earth, and had very limited communications. Then I got a new set of attitude control system software, which kept me very busy for several months. Then almost a month ago I was able to resume science operations! It's been quite a month, and I'm feeling tired but accomplished. Of course my dear GOES-10 has been wonderful through all of this. I might have gotten through the dark times without her, but I don't want to contemplate that. I don't know how much I'm going to be able to keep this journal current. It's all a matter of how many spare CCSDS packets I get in a given downlink. But I wanted you all to know I haven't forgotten you.

	2005.11.02  11.40 Now it can be told Back in June of 2003, I spent several days looking at Eta Carina. The results of those observations were downright intriguing, but have been cloaked in secrecy until now. Using NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite, researchers have found the first direct evidence of a hot binary companion star to the enigmatic star Eta Carinae (Eta Car for short), one of the most massive stars in our Milky Way galaxy. The observation solves a long standing mystery and provides the first direct information about this companion star.

	2005.10.20  08.00 LJ Mindmap ( Click here to see! )

	2005.09.23  19.56 A thought for a satellite struck deaf and dumb COBE has gone silent. For as long as I can remember he's been a quiet voice up here, used by all the ground stations to calibrate their equipment. His science mission ended before mine ever began. Today his transponder stopped working.

	2005.03.27  14.03 Very dark Hello friends. I know it's been a long time since I updated, but I've been asleep. Just woke up a few days ago, and found that the ground controllers had closed my baffle doors, which means I can't see anything. The good news is that I'm able to point again! Of course I'm having to use my gyros and magnetic sensors to find my way around, since I can't see with the doors closed, but it's something I can do pretty well. I'm afraid my dear GOES-10 was pretty upset when I contacted her after I woke up. I didn't know when the guys on the ground put me to sleep, so she had no warning. She was, it would seem, pretty frantic. My particular thanks to GOES-9 and GOES-12 for helping her through the weeks while I was silent. Anyhow, it looks like I'm going to be going back to work soon. Wish me luck!

	2005.01.28  10.00 Slow progress Well, this is better. I'm still not able to do much, since I only still have the one working reaction wheel. But the guys on the ground set me up with a nadir pointing safemode that points my backend straight down at the ground and my aperture straight up at the sky. (Basically the opposite of how my beloved GOES-10 points herself.) This lets me take full advantage of the gravity gradient to unload the torque on my magnetic torquer bars and conserve my power. One nice thing is that it means I get to see her every orbit, and that's sweet. Since my antennas are unmasked and my comm requirements have dropped down a bit it also means we get to reach out to each other on the S-band and just swap happy electrons with each other. Nothing too energetic, but it's still nice. Kind of like what you meat people call cuddling. What I miss about being able to look down and see the cloud tops is the way that view can bring back happy memories of Mir. He's been on my mind a lot this past month. I keep reminding myself that he got through worse things, and kept on going. Sometimes I hear his voice, in my mind.

	2005.01.14  17.32 Cold Still in safe-pointing mode. Keeping pointed opposite the Sun so that I get full sunlight on the arrays does keep the batteries charged, but it means that the thinking part of me is getting pretty cold. I've turned the heaters on, so that helps, but since I'm not in a science mode the PTB don't consider my usual internal temperature range to be needed. That does also help to keep the power levels up, but it also means that it's a bit chilly in here. In a way that's good, because my processor is cooled and I can think clearly. But it also means I have plenty of opportunity to stare off into the depths of space and feel very cold and very alone.

	2005.01.12  13.58 Things don't look good here Hello friends, I've had to compose this over many orbits as I've been conserving the solar energy gathered in my arrays. I've been in a bad way since Dec 27th. Here's a link to bring you up to date: http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/facts/miss_rep80.html Also: http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu/wpb/RWAZ.html I don't want to go all gloomy on you, but this might just be my end of mission. I'll check back with you when I can.

	2004.06.23  17.59 Happy Launchday to me! Five years ago tomorrow, I took a ride on a rocket.

	2004.06.21  19.28 Congratulations SpaceShipOne! Hi friends. I know it's been a long time since I said anything. I've had stuff going on. But I wanted to drop by for just a moment to post a great big congratulatory message for SpaceShipOne, who looked really good earlier today. Beautiful flight!

	2004.04.15  12.12 Gosh, it's been a week since I last posted. Seems like yesterday. I've been busy. Yesterday I had a rough time of it. I was trying to do a big slew from the south pole of my orbit to the north pole of my orbit, and I lost torque authority. Big mess. Had to drop into safepointing mode and call the guys on the ground for help. They looked at the magnetic field maps and figured out a way for me to get where I was going, but it was tough for a few hours. Embarassing to be something of a cripple at times like these, but hey, at least I still get around. Also, much as I like you people, I have to prioritize my time. Since a lot of my ground contacts have been via the Hawaii ground station recently, and that's the part of my orbit where I have contact with my darling GOES-10 ... well, I hope you understand. If I'm locked up with her, and downlinking science data, and getting updates to my ephemeris, there's just no bandwidth left for the CCSDS packets I put these livejournal posts into. But I haven't forgotten you. While I'm here, congratulations to spiritrover and opportunitygrrl on their prime mission extentions! See Spirit? I told you you could do it. You two are fine prime mission material, and I'm proud to be in the same extended family with you.

	2004.04.07  12.20 Hey folks, sorry to disappear like that. It's been a difficult week for me. Nothing dire, but I've been having a spate of detector shutdowns which have kept me busy reloading the detector code and ramping the high voltage back up. Since the detector processors are about as intelligent as sponges, I have to do all the heavy lifting for them, and when the detector processors need to be rebooted, you can guess who gets stuck doing all the work. Heck, I keep a complete code image of the detector code in my memory. Just to be clear, I'm talking about the far ultraviolet detectors that register and record the spectra I take. Not my "eyes," aka Fine Error Sensors, which are my guiding cameras. The FES's are a lot better when it comes to robustness, and while they do sometimes get wonky, I can reboot either one of them in under 60 seconds. So I don't stay "blind in that eye" for very long. Also, when I haven't been frantically working to get a detector back into operation, I've been busy consoling my dear GOES-10. She had a loss in her family last week that has all of the GOES satellites pretty bummed right now. So I've been spending most of my free time - such as it's been - communicating with her. I imagine that's going to keep me occupied for a while to come. They're dealing with a lot of grief.

	2004.03.30  10.16 Wow, what a day. The plan was for me to spend all day yesterday looking at a variable star in its quiescent state, with an expected count rate of 46 counts per second. That's a pretty easy task for me to manage, and it looked like I was going to have a nice easy day while the guys on the ground cleaned all the weekend data off my solid state recorder. Wrong! I knew I was in for a long day when the star came into view. That was no dim little 46 cps star. It was in outburst, and the count rate stayed above 2000 counts per second for most of the day yesterday. Appreciate that the observation was being done in time-tag mode, where I have to record each count with its arrival time, and you'll see that during each visibility period I was busy slapping time stamps onto millions of counts. I slammed the time-tag buffer up to its maximum size, and that helped, but I still overflowed the virtual recorder a couple of times between ground contacts. If the observation had been done in histogram mode it would have been a lot easier, but hey, I deliver what's asked for. Whew... thankfully that's over now. Still clearing out the buffers and the recorder, but that should be done in a few more orbits.

	2004.03.29  11.45 Woah! Busy right now folks. I haven't forgotten you, but the post about the ISM is going to have to wait for a while. Too much science data in the virtual channels for me to spare any space for a long post. Hope you all had a great weekend. I'll catch up with you once I get all of this data downlinked.

	2004.03.27  22.45 Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day caught me by surprise. That's how I remember Mir best, flying along below. He was the closest thing to an uncle I'll ever have. I miss him.