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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

#81

Post by coldtea »

autoexec wrote: post #77

I really have to hand it to NASA. Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and it's still getting updates but we're supposed to be okay with the cell phones that launched 5 years ago no longer being updated.

Long-term updated devices might be OK for your wallet and the environment, but they're not good at making profits. They also slow down "innovation", and what would we be without 100s of useless ("necessary") functions in our modern phones? We'd have to (gasp) talk to each other at restaurants or also use proper dedicated devices like a camera and would miss some selfies!

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#82

Post by physicles »

fuzzythinker wrote: post #47

To put the 12B miles in an easier grasp, Pluto's average distance is 3.7B miles. So Voyager 2 is a hair under 3.3 Plutos away, and Voyager 1 at 15B miles is slightly over 4 Plutos away. Another point of reference is the heliosphere, at 100AU. 1AU (earth to Sun) is 93M miles, so the heliosphere is around 2.5 Plutos away.

On some other YouTube channel, I recently saw a diagram where the width was 0.01 light-year. That’s “only” about 59 billion miles; surely we can’t be too far from the moment we can conceive of Voyager 1’s distance in light-years.

Nope. At its current speed, we’ve got another 129 years. That’s an underestimate because the spacecraft will continue to decelerate a bit as it pulls farther away from the sun.

That’s about 60,000 years to the nearest star.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#83

Post by kosolam »

rahen wrote: post #75
sgt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their latest patch was actually converting the entire app to use npm. Let's hope the poor probe has enough memory.

With npm, 64GB ought to be enough for everyone.

A rust rewrite from scratch is already in process

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#84

Post by randomdata »

autoexec wrote: post #77

I really have to hand it to NASA. Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and it's still getting updates but we're supposed to be okay with the cell phones that launched 5 years ago no longer being updated.

If you have Voyager 2's budget, I'm sure someone would be quite happy to sell you a phone that receives updates for decades.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#85

Post by shiroiuma »

fuzzythinker wrote: post #47

To put the 12B miles in an easier grasp, Pluto's average distance is 3.7B miles. So Voyager 2 is a hair under 3.3 Plutos away, and Voyager 1 at 15B miles is slightly over 4 Plutos away. Another point of reference is the heliosphere, at 100AU. 1AU (earth to Sun) is 93M miles, so the heliosphere is around 2.5 Plutos away.

I thought I read more recently that they're no longer sure about where the heliosphere ends, because of the data returned from the V'ger probes.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#86

Post by thiago_fm »

hef19898 wrote: post #74
wannacboatmovie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly the "megabytes of JavaScript to 'hello world'" culture of today could not even begin to comprehend how this even works

It funny, usually people on HN diss NASA et all hard for being those big, inept governkent agencies, with SpaceX being so so mich better because SpaceX get SW"engineering". And then NASA does something like this, and all of sudden it so cool! Coupd it be that those orgs aren't even nearly as incompetent as people have a tendency to think?

It definitely doesn't, maybe there are some jerks that think badly of NASA, but I doubt they make the majority of us. They do a lot of engineering and science, but have been underfunded for so many years, with the government siding with private companies.

For many, like me. It would be a dream to work at NASA, whatever the salary or bureaucracies it might involve.

It was my childhood dream, but given I wasn't American, that would never happen.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#88

Post by jen729w »

coldtea wrote: post #81
autoexec wrote: post #77

I really have to hand it to NASA. Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and it's still getting updates but we're supposed to be okay with the cell phones that launched 5 years ago no longer being updated.

Long-term updated devices might be OK for your wallet and the environment, but they're not good at making profits. They also slow down "innovation", and what would we be without 100s of useless ("necessary") functions in our modern phones? We'd have to (gasp) talk to each other at restaurants or also use proper dedicated devices like a camera and would miss some selfies!

Old mobile phones aren’t transmitting priceless scientific data.

Long-term updates to old devices are a drain on the people updating them. You start a hardware company and let’s see how long you and your little team of really expensive engineers keep updating last year’s product.

Re: NASA just sent a software update to a spacecraft 12B miles away

#90

Post by imdsm »

rich_sasha wrote: post #61

They are doing it all wrong. Who runs on-prem hardware these days??? They should put it all in the cloud, they can replicate and have many instances of virtual Voyagers, not the measly 2. CDN should help with latency too, I hear their latency is measured in many hours, and is getting worse every day! Also, software update, big deal - use CI/CD! They probably don't have a Kanban board either... Dinosaurs!

Run it in the nebula!
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