It takes around 22+ hours for 1 way communication to Voyager if I recall correctly. It takes 8 min for light to reach earth from the Sun. The closest star is 4.24 light years away. These kinds of distances are hard wrap your mind around.
NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away
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Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away
#52How much is that in metric units?
1931256466260489.5 centimetres or, if you prefer, 3167950339119.439 giraffes.
I doubt that giraffes are metric. But maybe they are some obscure SI unit?
Fun fact. 1 billion km is almost 1.1 light hours. 1 billion miles is almost 1.5 light hours with less error margin. So you can easily calculate that Voyager 2 is about 18 light hours from Earth.
Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away
#53How much is that in metric units?
It's in space, so we can say 129 Astronomical Units.
Easier to read than 19300000000km
Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away
#54What got me intrigued was how did they send the update and what was the size of the update. Sadly no mention of those aspects in the article. Is there any way to find out ? I was feeling so low today that I just switched to HN to tune things off of my mind, saw this headline and right off the bat, am in a better mood. What an incredible feat of engineering !
Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I highly doubt an amateur has the means to contact the probes. Heck, I'm not even sure any organization besides NASA has antennas big enough for the job.
You don't think a modified DirecTV antenna will do it?
If it's sarcasm I'm failing to detect with my l/4 antenna but no
And it should beg the question: why do you think DirecTV managed to use the smaller antennas ;)
Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away
#56Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away
#57This is incredible. Not just because of the engineering that went into such a long lived machine, but also because of the ingenuity of the teams that have looked after this mission and those currently working on it. Half a century of operation. Bits of data, like gold dust, peppering our radio telescopes with telemetry from the edges of our protective solar shell, and beyond. Not only is the technical achievement som…
> Not only is the technical achievement something to be celebrated Only the _documentation_ effort must be monumental.
Yes, and JPL makes it available.
Voyager Telecom: https://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/DPSummary/Descanso4--Voyager_n...
A lot more at the top-level site and the links on the right-hand side: https://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/
Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away
#58This is incredible. Not just because of the engineering that went into such a long lived machine, but also because of the ingenuity of the teams that have looked after this mission and those currently working on it. Half a century of operation. Bits of data, like gold dust, peppering our radio telescopes with telemetry from the edges of our protective solar shell, and beyond. Not only is the technical achievement som…
> Not only is the technical achievement something to be celebrated Only the _documentation_ effort must be monumental.
Lets hope the _archival_ effort can match or in 50 years time we’ll have another one of these:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_and_missing_Moon_rock...
Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away
#59I hope they will publish firmware/source code at some point in the future. It would be definitely interesting to look into.
JPL has this neat guide to Voyager Telecoms with loads of details. https://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/DPSummary/Descanso4--Voyager_n...
Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away
#60Love the Voyagers story. Just get me thinking: Why there is not more missions like this ? It takes significant time to cross "somewhere there", every year one launch could not hurt ? Edit: *Obligatory video: "Uptime 15,364 days - The Computers of Voyager" by Aaron Cummings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H62hZJVqs2o Also here on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=voyager
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