NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth • Hacker News Board

Re: NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

#301

Post by divbzero » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 8:30 PM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #300

randomtoast wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my math is correct, we would already need to build a spaceship that can travel at 1/10th the speed of light to reach Voyager 1 within one week. It will be quite an engineering challenge for the future.

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-they-now/ says the furthest is 24.4 million km from earth. Pulling out the trusty qalculator: $ qalc '24.4e6 km / 1 week / c to %' (((24.4 * (10^6)) kilometers) / (1 week)) / SpeedOfLight = approx. 0.0134572816% So this is using the "millions of kilometers per week" as a speed unit (like km/h but bigger), then dividing by the speed of light (c) to get the fraction of…

That’s pretty cool.

Wolfram Alpha also yields approx. 0.134 c for 1 week of travel time:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷...

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Perhaps targeting 100 weeks of travel time would be more plausible:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+voyager+1+÷...

0.00134 c is approx. two times the top speed of 0.00064 c for the fastest space probe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe

If only we could harness gravity assist at will…

Re: NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

#302

Post by ilrwbwrkhv » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 9:42 PM UTC

divbzero wrote: post #234

The substance of this news release is incredible, but its style is also admirable. The authors managed to convey in seven paragraphs a concise and comprehensible explanation of how the team resolved the technical issue.

Ha! Thank you for mentioning it. I thought the same as well while reading it. It was terse but not skimping on details while maintaining a certain style.

I really wish most other websites were like this. SEO and Google has really made the world a worse place.

Re: NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

#303

Post by hnlmorg » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 9:48 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #129

hnlmorg wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was Voyager 6, a fictional probe based on the real life probes of the same name. Earth probe gone bad is a common trope in Sci-Fi. Star Trek alone has a few episodes: - https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Nomad - https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Friendship_1 Also the Doomsday machine was a very different type of probe to V’ger https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Doomsday_Machine_(e...

Strangely, this isn’t listed as a trope here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/StarTrekTheMotio...

The article does also say

> As a side note, the general story is nearly identical to the Original Series episode "The Changeling,"

That episode was one of the other examples in my post (Nomad).

Re: NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

#304

Post by wkat4242 » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 10:04 PM UTC

This is so cool. These guys are steely-eyed missile men. (Or women but I know what is most likely - lol). Remotely repairing a 45 year old probe 24 billion kilometers away. Wow.

Re: NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

#305

Post by lolive » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 10:04 PM UTC

kevincox wrote: post #279

lolive wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, my original iPad is still working fine.

Can you run any secure browser on it?

Safari does open Amazon.com in HTTPS. But 256MB of RAM is really small for proper browsing.

Anyway, apart from the browser, comics reading, TuneInRadio, old games and digital photoframe apps still work ok.

(in case you have the strange idea to buy outdated ipad to play with, take at least ipad 2, which is indeed stupidly obsolete, but faaaaaar more powerful than the original iPad :)

Re: NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

#306

Post by wkat4242 » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 10:07 PM UTC

Fatnino wrote: post #158

iampivot wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know how long the power source will last?

It has a few years left as best. Supposed to run out in the 2020s

Yeah too bad they didn't put a bit more plutonium in it. But it's already lasted beyond the designers' wildest imagination.

Re: NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

#307

Post by wkat4242 » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 10:09 PM UTC

xattt wrote: post #207

wolverine876 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [1] https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/ Also: Even if science data won't likely be collected after 2025, engineering data could continue to be returned for several more years. The two Voyager spacecraft could remain in the range of the Deep Space Network through about 2036, depending on how much power the spacecraft still have to transmit a signal back to Earth. That FAQ covers a lot of interes…

> the cameras were turned off to save power and memory Since it’s powered by an RTG, how does the power get “used up”? I assume that this refers to the available power budget at a given moment versus some sort of expendable power reserve.

It's radioactive so the half-life has a serious effect. Its half-life is 87 years so it's not even used up one. I guess it wasn't really very overdimensioned. But it wasn't meant to last this long.

Re: NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

#308

Post by wkat4242 » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 10:11 PM UTC

nojvek wrote: post #121

treesknees wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you're getting at, but the 'average' vape pen is essentially a disposable battery and temperature sensor with no additional inputs or features. After reading some details about the Voyager, I have my doubts that a disposable vape has more computation power [1]. Maybe the higher end devices with programable displays and temperature settings? [1] https://www.eejournal.com/article/voyagers-1-and-2-take…

New vapes have Bluetooth on a small chip that tracks # of puffs remaining. Being sold for $40 bucks a at store. Crazy that we have disposable one use electronics now.

Well it IS crazy.

This silicon and lithium could be used for much much better things and recycled as well, than a few puffs of a substance only meant to make people addicted.

Re: NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

#309

Post by wkat4242 » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 10:12 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #202

wkat4242 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this happened after 45 years, I don't think people would mind.

Voyager's cameras were shut off after only 13 years to conserve power. Still a long time, but some people might mind if their phone did that.

True but their phones aren't a billion kms away so they can just get the battery replaced :P 13 years is really excellent for lithium batteries.

Re: NASA's Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth

#310

Post by ncr100 » Tue, Apr 23, 2024, 10:40 PM UTC

This achievement feels like it should be CELEBRATED, like in the Oscars of Software Engineering ... Technical Achievement award:

* NASA