Deep Space One

Deep Space 1, part of NASA's New Millennium Program was launched on Oct. 24th, 1998. During a highly successful primary mission, it tested 12 advanced technologies in space. Two of these technologies, the ion propulsion system and remote agent software[1], won awards.

From the Deep Space 1 site ( http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/ ):

Two months after the end of its extremely successful primary mission, Deep Space 1's star tracker, which was responsible for determining the probe's orientation in the zero-gravity of space, ceased operating. By that time, DS1 had already achieved more than it set out to do, so it could have been retired to rest on its many laurels. But engineers devised a way to restore the craft's sense of direction by writing new computer programs to use the camera instead of the star tracker. Previous mission logs, still the focus of admiration in two of the spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy, have described the extraordinary difficulty of this job. The challenge was made still greater when the team elected to aim for the grand prize of being ready to resume thrusting in July in time to give DS1 a chance to encounter a comet in September 2001.