Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Hawkmoon on August 06, 2022, 04:39:51 PM
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It's easy to lose track, but the Voyager 1 and 2 space missions -- which were launched in my lifetime -- are still active after an incredible 45 years. Putting that into perspective, a student could have begun work on the project as a recent graduate/intern, spent an entire career on the project, and have been retired for decades -- and the satellites are still sending data.
But not for much longer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWlXDRsfYAA
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OMG, it's V'ger!
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Don't forget - the Voyagers have less computing power than a simple smartphone. ??? :O
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Don't forget - the Voyagers have less computing power than a simple smartphone. ??? :O
Hell, I bet most microwaves nowadays have more.
Brad
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Don't forget - the Voyagers have less computing power than a simple smartphone. ??? :O
The onboard memory storage is a glorified eight-track tape deck. "Continuous Loop Magnetic Tape."
That the solid state radios, thermocouples, etc. still work is amazing, but the fact that the memory bank is still working borders on Divine Intervention. :laugh:
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The Voyager 1 mission may soon be coming to an end.
There's still hope but it's not looking good as for several months V1 has been sending back basically gibberish due an issue with it's computer.
NASA hasn't pulled the plug yet so to speak but they may soon.
In December of 2023, the Voyager 1 team announced that the spacecraft's malfunction lies with its Flight Data System, or FDS, which is one of its onboard computers. There used to be a backup FDS, but that stopped working in 1981.
"Because of this issue, scientists are not receiving any science data or updates about the probe's health and status, including information that might reveal the source of the problem," the team explains.
Here's where perhaps the greatest trouble with this dilemma comes in. One of the FDS' main jobs is to basically keep Voyager 1's medical records up to date, then work with what's known as the telemetry modulation unit, or TMU, to tell ground control what's going on. But, because the FDS itself is the one malfunctioning, that medical record transmission can't happen.
NASA's Voyager 1 glitch has scientists sad yet hopeful: 'Voyager 2 is still going strong'
https://www.space.com/nasa-voyager1-spacecraft-interstellar-engineers-mission-glitch
Anton video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1T7RKGIPsA
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Probably Arcturian (or whoever) patrols found it and were tinkering with it. Even as we speak they are deciphering the data to see where it came from and are getting ready to launch pre-emptive missilery toward us.
One faction wants the strike, the other is thinking, since they were such aholes as to provide their source / location information, they must be peaceable anyhow, so let's "reach out to them (us) with nysoibles (palms of their 'hands') extended in peace."
Story plot? Go! Contains nice "wokey" elements.
:rofl:
Terry, 230RN
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Probably Arcturian (or whoever) patrols found it and were tinkering with it. Even as we speak they are deciphering the data to see where it came from and are getting ready to launch pre-emptive missilery toward us.
One faction wants the strike, the other is thinking, since they were such aholes as to provide their source / location information, they must be peaceable anyhow, so let's "reach out to them (us) with nysoibles (palms of their 'hands') extended in peace."
Story plot? Go! Contains nice "wokey" elements.
:rofl:
Terry, 230RN
Could also be Psychlos.
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Probably Arcturian (or whoever) patrols found it and were tinkering with it. Even as we speak they are deciphering the data to see where it came from and are getting ready to launch pre-emptive missilery toward us.
One faction wants the strike, the other is thinking, since they were such aholes as to provide their source / location information, they must be peaceable anyhow, so let's "reach out to them (us) with nysoibles (palms of their 'hands') extended in peace."
Story plot? Go! Contains nice "wokey" elements.
:rofl:
Terry, 230RN
Could be the Zanti. They're real misfits.
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The Voyager 1 mission may soon be coming to an end.
There's still hope but it's not looking good as for several months V1 has been sending back basically gibberish due an issue with it's computer.
NASA hasn't pulled the plug yet so to speak but they may soon.
Godspeed, you magnificently stubborn little macine.
Brad
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Even without this current issue V1 will out of usable power in a few years anyway but they would like to continue to collect data until then.
Even if it's mission ends it's journey has only just begun.
"In the year 40,272 AD, Voyager 1 will come within 1.7 light years of an obscure star in the constellation Ursa Minor (the Little Bear or Little Dipper) called AC+79 3888," NASA explains.
https://www.iflscience.com/voyager-1-continues-to-send-nasa-repeating-pattern-of-1s-and-0s-from-interstellar-space-73275
Voyagers 1 and 2 will likely still be going long after we're gone perhaps for millions of years or even more. That's bit of a sobering thought.
Who knows, maybe some future alien will find it and wonder where it came from and perhaps trace it back to a burnt out planet orbiting a dying star.
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We know what happened to Pioneer 10: destroyed by Captain Klaa of the Klingon Empire: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Pioneer_10
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Even without this current issue V1 will out of usable power in a few years anyway but they would like to continue to collect data until then.
Even if it's mission ends it's journey has only just begun.
https://www.iflscience.com/voyager-1-continues-to-send-nasa-repeating-pattern-of-1s-and-0s-from-interstellar-space-73275
Voyagers 1 and 2 will likely still be going long after we're gone perhaps for millions of years or even more. That's bit of a sobering thought.
Who knows, maybe some future alien will find it and wonder where it came from and perhaps trace it back to a burnt out planet orbiting a dying star.
Billions and billions of stars.... by the Hubble 'scope:
(https://scitechdaily.com/images/Hubble-Views-Globular-Cluster-Messier-5.jpg)
This thread made me muse over the fact that the laws of chemistry and physics are the same everywhere... and so is the periodic table. Where silicon, oxygen, and carbon exists, there are rocks. Sometimes big enough to have a gravity decent enough to hold water.
Where 1% of those stars may have planets, 1% of that 1% may have water, and 1% of those may have carbohydrates, and 1% of those may have coal and oil, and 1% of those may have reproductive life, and 1%...
That's a hell of a lot of planets. I think it's pretty likely that sooner or later our little missives will be found. Later, of course, not sooner, but likely.
And on some of them there will be bicycles and left-handed nuts and bolts and somebody mixing KNO3 and sulphur and charcoal and grilling food behind their shelters and oh, there have got to be games of chance, so playing a bridge-like game with four of them on their rest days is likely and six sided cubes with dots on them are ideal shapes and pi will be the same, 3.243F6 A8885, because they have 8 "fingers" on each "paw."
Jes' musing.
Nap time.
Terry
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The Hubble photo that always... I don't know the proper word for it... impressed? rattled? left me awe struck? me was the initial deep field photo montage, taken in 1995.
Hubble was pointed at an "empty" spot in the sky to see what was there...
Virtually everything in that image, over 3,000 individual items, is a galaxy. Not a star (there are a few in the image) but galaxies. Each with tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions or even billions, of stars.
(https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.c005f256b3aa0cc847a9a1bbf1b18032?rik=YN8IT26Wnr5vWg&riu=http%3a%2f%2fwallpapercave.com%2fwp%2fcbn47R2.jpg&ehk=l99BnbNkV6lvyWw1x1C8Y5aqcQgIkgOnzRBsQSXHKPI%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0)
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The Hubble photo that always... I don't know the proper word for it... impressed? rattled? left me awe struck? me was the initial deep field photo montage, taken in 1995.
Hubble was pointed at an "empty" spot in the sky to see what was there...
Virtually everything in that image, over 3,000 individual items, is a galaxy. Not a star (there are a few in the image) but galaxies. Each with tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions or even billions, of stars.
It is always interesting to see the new stuff we learn and see that we are forced to revisit all our theories and assumptions every time we put out a better telescope or send a better probe closer to the planets. Seems like James Webb telescope is doing that also.
The more surprising thing is it almost seems like that was unexpected by some as if new telescopes would just confirm what they already knew.
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Voyager 1: I'm not dead yet.....sort of
On March 3, the Voyager mission team saw activity from one section of the FDS that differed from the rest of the computer’s unreadable data stream. The new signal was still not in the format used by Voyager 1 when the FDS is working properly, so the team wasn’t initially sure what to make of it. But an engineer with the agency’s Deep Space Network, which operates the radio antennas that communicate with both Voyagers and other spacecraft traveling to the Moon and beyond, was able to decode the new signal and found that it contains a readout of the entire FDS memory.
The FDS memory includes its code, or instructions for what to do, as well as variables, or values used in the code that can change based on commands or the spacecraft’s status. It also contains science or engineering data for downlink. The team will compare this readout to the one that came down before the issue arose and look for discrepancies in the code and the variables to potentially find the source of the ongoing issue.
The team is analyzing the readout. Using that information to devise a potential solution and attempt to put it into action will take time.
May not lead to a fix but may help in understanding what is going on
NASA Engineers Make Progress Toward Understanding Voyager 1 Issue
https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/2024/03/13/nasa-engineers-make-progress-toward-understanding-voyager-1-issue/
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More
NASA's Voyager 1 sends readable message to Earth after 4 nail-biting months of gibberish
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/nasas-voyager-1-sends-readable-message-to-earth-after-4-nail-biting-months-of-gibberish
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More
NASA's Voyager 1 sends readable message to Earth after 4 nail-biting months of gibberish
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/nasas-voyager-1-sends-readable-message-to-earth-after-4-nail-biting-months-of-gibberish
So.... Voyager was channeling the Joe Biden network?
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So.... Voyager was channeling the Joe Biden network?
It's not that bad
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More
NASA's Voyager 1 sends readable message to Earth after 4 nail-biting months of gibberish
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/nasas-voyager-1-sends-readable-message-to-earth-after-4-nail-biting-months-of-gibberish
Good luck to both Voyager and NASA.
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Fifteen billion miles? Man, what a QSL card!
RST 10-5 by 10-5 K
ETA REF (Sample QSL card from a ham station in Asia:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/JT0AE_QSL_card.jpg)
The slashed zero Ø as a location indicator is common. My and my sons' license plates, being from Colorado, have slashed zeros. I got tired of answering questions about that Ø so one year I went to a regular plate. I'm still trying to find an example of Marlon Brando's QSL card.
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Fifteen billion miles? Man, what a QSL card!
RST 10-5 by 10-5
=)
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They've narrowed down which memory chip is causing the issue and are optimistic they can do a workaround though it may take a few weeks to months.
A faulty chip caused NASA’s Voyager 1 to send unreadable data
https://www.inceptivemind.com/faulty-chip-caused-nasa-voyager-1-send-unreadable-data/37189/
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I think I have one of those memory chips in my stash of obsolete parts. NASA can have it for nothing.
Oh, wait...
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I think I have one of those memory chips in my stash of obsolete parts. NASA can have it for nothing.
Oh, wait...
If you hurry you just might catch it
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If anyone can it's the RocketMan.
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Making progress
NASA's Voyager 1 probe is once again sending readable radio signals back to Earth after engineers fixed a computer glitch that caused the spacecraft to malfunction in November.
For the first time in five months, Voyager 1 is now transmitting usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems back to our planet, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced Monday (April 22). However, engineers have yet to fix the software that enables the spacecraft to return science data.
After months of sending gibberish to NASA, Voyager 1 is finally making sense again
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/after-months-of-sending-gibberish-to-nasa-voyager-1-is-finally-making-sense-again
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That sounds like some pretty good remote tech support.
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That sounds like some pretty good remote tech support.
NASA hires only the finest Indians
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NASA hires only the finest Indians
This might be the first case of the end user being the one that's hard to understand on the phone for the tech support guy.
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101100011110100110110001101 :rofl:
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This might be the first case of the end user being the one that's hard to understand on the phone for the tech support guy.
If they're using the same support contractor that my company uses for provisioning our company laptops...
Well, let's just say we're not going to be getting back to the moon any time soon.
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NASA: How you doing V1?
V1 45 hours later: bzzz
NASA: What? I didn't get that
V1 45 hours later: bzzz bzzz bzzz
NASA: Crap, this may take a while