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Voyager 2 is back online after eight months of radio silence

theregister.com

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Re: Voyager 2 is back online after eight months of radio silence

#51

Post by part1of2 »

brazzy wrote: post #5
onion2k wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our hacks are nothing compared to the hacks of these old school nasa programmers :) The amazing thing (to me) is that they developed the Voyager spacecraft in an era when space flight wasn't hugely popular and the budgets at NASA were being cut regularly. NASA went from a peak of $6bn a year in the mid-sixties under Johnson to almost half that under Ford and Nixon. The engineers were well-respected and they clearly f…

It's great, but hardly amazing. Most academic research is done by underpaid PhD and postdoc students for the love of science, and most of that is far less glamorous than SPACE.

> Most academic research is done by underpaid PhD and postdoc students for the love of science

I’d hardly call the graduate papers coming out of academia equivalent to the level of innovation & creativity of what the engineers above described. Perhaps they’re both underpaid, but one is certainly more amazing. Hardly the same.

Re: Voyager 2 is back online after eight months of radio silence

#52

Post by GoToRO »

ponker wrote: post #22
superasn wrote: post #3

I was just reading the pale blue dot and he mentions that Voyager 2’s scan platform jammed after its encounter with Saturn. Voyager 2 emerged from behind Saturn (as seen from the Earth) in August 1981. The scan platform had been moving feverishly—pointing here and there among the rings, moons, and the planet itself during the all-too-brief moments of close approach. Suddenly, the platform jammed. A stuck scan platfor…

They didn't even spin something 350 times before launching it out of the solar system?

What you say is just common sense but as you can see from the downvotes, average people do not like smart people. And the exact same thing happened before the launch, I bet. But the exceptional engineer was simply “downvoted”.

Things are tested all the time in factories. For how long? Till destruction.

Re: Voyager 2 is back online after eight months of radio silence

#53

Post by emrehan »

pvaldes wrote: post #32

Lets imagine... hypothetically [1] that we could design a new kind of space oriented machines, sort of a "spatial server" or a "telephone repeater", that could be left in Pluto (or an asteroid, or orbiting Saturn, whatever...), and be designed to take this weak signals, amplify it, and resend it to the earth Would this help to increase the range of what discover can report and... hum, discover? Would help us to have…

Carl Sagan mentions this possibility in Pale Blue Dot, concluding that such a mission's budget could be better utilized for other projects. For the following reasons:

1) Voyagers have turned off most of their instruments due to their diminishing power sources

2) Voyagers are moving away with speeds that are hard to match by even contemporary launches thanks to their gravitational assist trajectories.

Re: Voyager 2 is back online after eight months of radio silence

#54

Post by myth_drannon »

superasn wrote: post #3

I was just reading the pale blue dot and he mentions that Voyager 2’s scan platform jammed after its encounter with Saturn. Voyager 2 emerged from behind Saturn (as seen from the Earth) in August 1981. The scan platform had been moving feverishly—pointing here and there among the rings, moons, and the planet itself during the all-too-brief moments of close approach. Suddenly, the platform jammed. A stuck scan platfor…

It looks like they spent a lot of resources to fix it. In our current business environment, the engineers will be moved to another more visible/successful project and this one will be written off.

Re: Voyager 2 is back online after eight months of radio silence

#57

Post by nitrogen »

prox wrote: post #18
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes me think of the demoscene, that is doing things like getting 3D graphics on the Commodore or whatever it was.

Future Crew - Second Reality

When I saw that one I had never seen anything so smoothly animated before that demo in my life. I think my brief exposure to the demoscene spoiled me, because I now can't stand the slightest graphics hiccup in anything.

Re: Voyager 2 is back online after eight months of radio silence

#58

Post by Hnrobert42 »

secondcoming wrote: post #50
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At risk of contaminating future lunar bases.

I'm pretty sure the moon is already being bombarded with all sorts of nasty radiation.

Ha. Excellent point.

I would guess that radioactive particles on the surface would be different that radioactive bombardment from space. You could shield your shelter from space, but if the soil had radioactive particles in it, then you couldn’t bring it in your shelter. For that matter, you would also have to shield the floor, or at least remove a layer of soil. You might have to do that anyway to build a foundation.

If it isn’t obvious, I don’t know what I am talking about.

Re: Voyager 2 is back online after eight months of radio silence

#59

Post by melling »

onion2k wrote: post #4
superasn wrote: post #3

I was just reading the pale blue dot and he mentions that Voyager 2’s scan platform jammed after its encounter with Saturn. Voyager 2 emerged from behind Saturn (as seen from the Earth) in August 1981. The scan platform had been moving feverishly—pointing here and there among the rings, moons, and the planet itself during the all-too-brief moments of close approach. Suddenly, the platform jammed. A stuck scan platfor…

Our hacks are nothing compared to the hacks of these old school nasa programmers :) The amazing thing (to me) is that they developed the Voyager spacecraft in an era when space flight wasn't hugely popular and the budgets at NASA were being cut regularly. NASA went from a peak of $6bn a year in the mid-sixties under Johnson to almost half that under Ford and Nixon. The engineers were well-respected and they clearly f…

We spent more money under Nixon and Ford than we do now.

You’re not familiar with how much money as a percentage of GDP we spent in the 1960s? It’s noteworthy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#Annual_budget

We were building the Space Shuttle and exploring the planets.

I wish we could spend money on NASA like we did in the 1970’s

Re: Voyager 2 is back online after eight months of radio silence

#60

Post by jerf »

curryst wrote: post #41
dirktheman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the actuator broke down the 351st time, would you've commented 'they didn't even spin something 400 times...'? What would be a number you'd be comfortable with instead?

I would have thought they would run every part until it died so they know roughly what it's lifespan is. It's good if the parts lifespan is twice as long as you need. However, it's even better if you could make it four times the amount you think you need, as long as it isn't horribly expensive. I would tend to assume they've thought of that though, and stuck with this part for reasons. Maybe there werent other space-…

I don't think any of us are in a position to be too critical of the engineering done for the Voyager probes. The number of machines running continuously for longer than I've been alive with no maintenance is pretty short; the number of them out past the orbit of Pluto even smaller.
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