NASA's Voyager 1 Probe In Interstellar Space Can't Phone Home (space.com) 34
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is, once again, having trouble transmitting any scientific or systems data back to Earth. "The 46-year-old spacecraft is capable of receiving commands, but a problem seems to have arisen with the probe's computers," reports Space.com. Slashdot readers quonset and ArchieBunker shared the news. From the report: Voyager 1's flight data system (FDS), which collects onboard engineering information and data from the spacecraft's scientific instruments, is no longer communicating as expected with the probe's telecommunications unit (TMU), according to a NASA blog post on Dec. 12. When functioning properly, the FDS compiles the spacecraft's info into a data package, which is then transmitted back to Earth using the TMU. Lately, that data package has been "stuck," the blog post said, "transmitting a repeating pattern of ones and zeros." Voyager's engineering team traced the problem back to the FDS, but it could be weeks before a solution is found. In May 2022, Voyager 1 experienced transmitting issues for several months before a workaround was found. Meanwhile, Voyager 2 experienced an unplanned "communications pause" earlier this year after a routine sequence of commands triggered a 2-degree change in the spacecraft's antenna orientation. This prevented it from receiving commands or transmitting data back to Earth until NASA fixed the issue a week later.
Re:NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well said. I have to think "Joe Incel" might be a better nickname for "Osgeld"...or perhaps "Osgelded".
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Always blaming Karen.
Okay, but ... (Score:5, Funny)
Lately, that data package has been "stuck," the blog post said, "transmitting a repeating pattern of ones and zeros."
Wait until it starts sending twos ... :-)
Re:Okay, but ... (Score:5, Funny)
It was just a dream, Bender. There's no such thing as "two".
It's nigh magic what ... (Score:5, Informative)
... NASA is pulling off with the Voyager probes. I hear they have to basically link a global array of large parabolic antennae together to even get and send signals to the Voyager probes. I also liked the fact that color imaging was added as a software update a few decades into their flights.
Effing amazing, that's what.
Re:It's nigh magic what ... (Score:5, Informative)
No, they do not have to *link* them together (as in interferometry). They just have to use the largest antennae they have - the 70 meter ones - at the Deep Space network sites. They have multiple sites so that the entire sky can be covered, but different sites take turns.
See https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.... [nasa.gov]
Oh. Ok. Thanks for ... (Score:2)
... the clarification.
Re:It's nigh magic what ... (Score:5, Informative)
Well, sometimes they do link dishes together.
1. Sending data to the Voyagers is done with a single 70 m antenna and its high-power transmitter.
2. Receiving most data is done with a single 70 m antenna. This data is sent at 160 bits per second. It is live data: streamed directly from the science instruments.
3. Once every few months, Voyager 1 plays back a load of data from one instrument that was stored on its tape recorder. This is done at 1400 bit/s, and requires all of the anntenas of one DSN site to be arrayed. The most recent playback was November 9.
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... NASA is pulling off with the Voyager probes. I hear they have to basically link a global array of large parabolic antennae together to even get and send signals to the Voyager probes. I also liked the fact that color imaging was added as a software update a few decades into their flights.
Effing amazing, that's what.
Considering how utterly simple those systems were, it's amazing that they're able to "update" them at all. One of the guys who has worked for them for a bit describes the "computers" on board as being the equivalent of a modern key fob, or even less sophisticated than that for the fancier remote info fobs today. What incredible engineering they put into those beasts to keep them cruising all this time and still mostly operational.
Re:It's nigh magic what ... (Score:5, Interesting)
..color imaging was added as a software update a few decades into their flights.
Effing amazing, that's what.
Er... I was a co-Investigator on Voyager; the "photos" we are familiar with were actually from an old-fashioned vidicon tube (well, there are two: one narrow-angle and one wide-angle). It took the system 48 seconds to acquire a single monochrome slow-scan image, at 800x800 quasi-pixels. To generate the colour pictures we all know and love, colour filters (red, green, blue) were moved in front of the lens, then three sequential images were taken over the course of (at least) 144 seconds (i.e., 3 times 48 seconds). These were combined back at Earth into a single colour image.
(And between the time the (monochrome) images were acquired and the time that they were transmitted they stored on board... on the DTR -- an actual, physical Digital Tape Recorder.)
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Wow, so even today there are functioning motors on the Voyager probes, moving camera filters and winding tapes (which haven't worn out in 50 years' use?)
Truly remarkable engineering.
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The cameras were shut down in 1989, after taking the 'family portrait of the solar system'. After Neptune, there were no more targets that the cameras could be used on. Shutting them down reduced the amount of power required by the spacecraft.
"a repeating pattern of ones and zeros" (Score:1)
You have to dumb it down more for us, you elitist bastards.
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The perv probe is spelling out "BOOBS" over and over, like we used to with Casio LEDs. It's lonely in space.
Captain hindsight (Score:2)
Should have sent relay probes after it.
Re:Captain hindsight (Score:5, Insightful)
That would not solve anything.
- the current DSN could stay in contact with the Voyagers until 2057.
- the Voyager mission will end in about 5 years when the RTG no longer supplies enough power to run a single science instrument, not because it goes out of range of the DSN.
- it's much cheaper to add a few more antennas to the DSN than to launch antennas capable of communicating with the Voyagers into space. Here on Earth, we are using an antenna with a diameter of 70 meters, or even a bunch of DSN antennas in an array. We are using a 100 kW transmitter to talk to the Voyagers. For a relay to make sense, we'd have had to launch a 70-meter antenna with a 100 kW nuclear reactor 25 years ago to get it halfway between the Voyagers and us. That would have taken several Saturn Vs, so we're talking a 10 billion dollar mission. DSN antennas cost $100 M each.
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Solar panels are pretty much ineffective beyond Jupiter's orbit (5-point-several AU), and Voyager 1 is currently out somewhere beyond 50 AU.
Say you have one "relay" probe, half-way between Voyager's current position and Earth's current position, and Earth is currently using 70m receiving antennae. Then the half-way probe would need to carry approximately a 35m receiving antennae (if it had the same power for it's amplifiers as available on the ground - a distinct question)
It's evolving (Score:5, Funny)
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In the next transmission, it will identify itself as V'ger.
Or Nomad.
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You can cite evidence of "fear of knowledge", rather than "limited budget"?
[Whispers to 4th wall] This could be a real rabbit hole.
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Odd, I posted a longer version of this with links a day or 2 ago, but seemed it never got to /., here is a shorter version.
One reason is nuclear, these were powered by nuclear decay. I remember people were worried a launch mistake could "destroy a city" and there were many articles about how these craft were powered and some said they were dangerous. People saw "nuclear/radioactive" and that was it. Plus around the same time, 3 Mile Island happened, so we stopped developing these type craft.
So, fear of "
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Yeah, I get this often enough that I (generally) save the content of a post into a file on my local machine, before attempting the "submit" button - and at irregular intervals Slashdot hangs for 5~10 minutes "verifying" me via some CAPTCHA service of Cloudflare, which then takes several minutes more to return, and often just doesn't. At which point, I've got the content saved on my mach
Well of course (Score:1)
It was launched before data roaming plans were a thing.
Misleading press wording (Score:1)
The spacecraft can still receive and respond to commands, it's just transmitting garbage data. Communication is lop-sided, but it is still communicating. If you want to stick with the "phoning home" metaphor, you could say Voyager drunk-dialed Earth.
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It's an amazing feat of engineering that the things have lasted as long as they have and transmitted useful scientific data. It's not a sad thing if craft can't be corrected, though maybe it can and scientific knowledge can continue to expand and our respect for this achievement can yet grow. It's awe inspiring.
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Yeah, I think they're playing the "phone home" analogy to people who saw some 1990s movie. Not to those of us for whom "phone home" has always included having a stack of coins in pocket and finding an in-order phone box.
Do kids of today get "subtitles" to explain the "phone box" in Superman movies?
Can you hear me now? (Score:2)
Aliens (Score:2)
I'm not saying it's Aliens ... but it's Aliens.
https://youtu.be/JkcceLrSe4I [youtu.be]
Aliens (Score:2)
Tell the aliens to stop screwing around with it.