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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

#161

Post by flkenosad »

jdblair wrote: post #136
jdblair wrote: post #134

If you want to learn about how the Voyager flight data system is designed, read Nasa's historical document Chapter 6: Distributed Computing On Board Voyager and Galileo [1]. The whole read is gripping, but the most interesting part for me is the section "Developing Voyager's Flight Data System Computer " describes the choice to use CMOS memory and DMA from instruments. [1] https://history.nasa.gov/computers/Ch6-2.htm…

It was a different world in 1975: After determining requirements, Wooddell examined possible hardware and software tradeoffs. In an insightful memorandum, John Morecroft explained the concept of "soft logic" as a complement to the "hard logic" in the Flight Data System44. Writing in 1975, when the actual flight software began to be prepared, Morecroft pointed out that the program for the computer was actually a soft…

Damn, that's cool. Do you have a link to the whole document?

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

#162

Post by jcaldas »

qrybam wrote: post #31

This 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…

As Oscar Wilde wrote, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars".

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

#163

Post by phist_mcgee »

mardifoufs wrote: post #158
kstenerud wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet literally the entire world aside from United States, Liberia, and Myanmar is able to grasp it perfectly. So such a statement would either insinuate that Americans are genetically inferior somehow, or you're just culturally attuned to an outdated British system.

So genetically inferior that they are the only ones with a craft that is 4 Plutos away :)

Could have been 5 plutos if they used metric.

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

#164

Post by dieselgate »

hef19898 wrote: post #108
skissane wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Many of NASA’s problems aren’t the fault of NASA, they are the fault of Congress. NASA didn’t come up with SLS+Orion all by themselves, the high-level design was dictated to them by Congress and NASA was left with the job of fleshing out the details and making it all work…

So SpaceX wants NASA to be able to spend all those billions with them instead of a competitor? Shroud business move, that says nothing about capabilities. Just one question, what will be avaiable first, FalconHeavy and a fully certified Starship (which has to launch without blowing up for that), Tesla FSD or Tesla's humanoid robot? Regarding SLS, they launched successfully last year and aim for a manned launch in 202…

Shrewd business move?

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

#165

Post by phist_mcgee »

wannacboatmovie wrote: post #36
andyp-kw wrote: post #24

Were unit tests a thing back when the probes were built? I wonder how new engineers learn about the intricacies of such ancient tech, without breaking them.

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

You're a barrel of laughs aren't you :)

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

#168

Post by egberts1 »

Evolution of long-delay error correction in Voyager also evolved a bit, given their 32KB firmware size constraint.

NASA went down to k=7 (from k=9) for convoluted coding.

Not only were Golay and Reed-Solomon ("a special subset of [Bose-Chadhuri-Hocquehem] codes" which are "a powerful class of Hamming code", Brown, Elements of Spacecraft Design) used, convolutional coding was also used.

Sources:

- Figure 3 - https://i.stack.imgur.com/z5F1p.png

- paper -https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/615317

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

#170

Post by alcal74 »

somenameforme wrote: post #115
hef19898 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Personally, I'd tend to give most credit for something like this to the era that created it. I mean building something that can be reasonably expected to operate and maintained in some of the most hostile conditions known to man, for half a century? It's just borderline magical. And NASA of that era did everything just perfectly, nailing all the gravity assists (obviously using computational/telemetry tech of the tim…

Agree with you here.
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