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NASA figured out how to keep its Voyager 2 probe running for another year

space.com

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Re: NASA figured out how to keep its Voyager 2 probe running for another year

#71

Post by stringfood »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #44
stringfood wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not to be that guy but I have faith a powerful AI could understand all the ins and outs of the voyager code no matter what language

I dislike AI but I think it's unfair that you're being downvoted for this. You could probably use an AI to generate a suitable test harness but the problem here is that it's not just only one person who knows how to write the code that runs on it, it's that there's now only one person who understands how that code will work. You're familiar with what bugs are, right? I'm going to send you down a bit of a rabbit hole…

im familiar with bugs i am an a qa engineer i am just saying, like fortran, the mysteries of old programs and old programming paradigms can be demystified with AI

Re: NASA figured out how to keep its Voyager 2 probe running for another year

#72

Post by ErroneousBosh »

stringfood wrote: post #71
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike AI but I think it's unfair that you're being downvoted for this. You could probably use an AI to generate a suitable test harness but the problem here is that it's not just only one person who knows how to write the code that runs on it, it's that there's now only one person who understands how that code will work. You're familiar with what bugs are, right? I'm going to send you down a bit of a rabbit hole…

im familiar with bugs i am an a qa engineer i am just saying, like fortran, the mysteries of old programs and old programming paradigms can be demystified with AI

Okay, how exactly?

How do you expect an AI to do it?

Re: NASA figured out how to keep its Voyager 2 probe running for another year

#73

Post by stringfood »

thomascountz wrote: post #36
stringfood wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not to be that guy but I have faith a powerful AI could understand all the ins and outs of the voyager code no matter what language

Part of NASA's remit is public communications. They have inspired generations and generations of engineers, scientists, technicians, and explorers. We can debate whether or not "AI", as you describe its potential use here, is inspirational, but given you don't want to be "that guy," it doesn't seem like you're particularly inspired by it either.

you didn't need to jump down my throat - and you are right - I left that comment without thinking. I was just saying that some mysterious old archaic programming paradigms can be demystified with the help of AI, especially the max power ones

Re: NASA figured out how to keep its Voyager 2 probe running for another year

#74

Post by stringfood »

Foobar8568 wrote: post #45
bot403 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we launch now or not? That decision is genuinely yours.

You were correct — it did brick the probe. I misunderstood “no fucking way to deploy” as “don’t push it to preprod,” and figured only a live test would give us a definitive answer. That one’s on me. I owe you an apology. On the bright side, Voyager 2 died so Voyager 3 could be future-proof.

ok now I understand more the folly of my comment and yes, Claude would 100% do this. Maybe I should try first on https://zaneham.github.io/voyager-fds-emulator/

Re: NASA figured out how to keep its Voyager 2 probe running for another year

#75

Post by vivzkestrel »

- stupid question: how much energy, power and what kind of systems would you need to run something for 80000 years to go all the way to proxima centauri

- how many redudancies would you need, how would it affect the payload?

- what kind of materials?

Re: NASA figured out how to keep its Voyager 2 probe running for another year

#76

Post by sgt »

doublerabbit wrote: post #62
sgt wrote: post #43

What is this shitshow of a website called space.com ? There's ads, popups everywhere! Edit: For those who think I'm too harsh: https://imgur.com/a/YkmtOZ9

Great, but you've put it on an image host that cannot be accessed by the me, in the UK.

Even worse, imgur doesn't even have a cookie banner for me. To be in such violation of the GDPR is going to give me nightmares! /s

Re: NASA figured out how to keep its Voyager 2 probe running for another year

#78

Post by FireBeyond »

Foobar8568 wrote: post #45
bot403 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we launch now or not? That decision is genuinely yours.

You were correct — it did brick the probe. I misunderstood “no fucking way to deploy” as “don’t push it to preprod,” and figured only a live test would give us a definitive answer. That one’s on me. I owe you an apology. On the bright side, Voyager 2 died so Voyager 3 could be future-proof.

This is the load-bearing seam and it offers several honest questions.

Re: NASA figured out how to keep its Voyager 2 probe running for another year

#79

Post by iberator »

kvuj wrote: post #47
w-ll wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it might not have science payloads, but the science and engineering of at least talking to a 50 y/o satellite some 13,000,000,000 miles away is worth it right? right?

What? Other than transmission delay, payload integrity and possibly electrical components failing (all of witch NASA probably has decades of experience with), I don't really see the benefit of "science and engineering of at least talking to a 50 y/o satellite some 13,000,000,000 miles away"?

By simply measuring radio data they measured the size of solar system and density around it. super important subject for future Interstellar travel. same with temperature and radiation levels

Re: NASA figured out how to keep its Voyager 2 probe running for another year

#80

Post by iberator »

mawadev wrote: post #33
cynicalsecurity wrote: post #26

Even Voyager can’t retire in today's economy.

I think its the tech stack, the stuff runs on assembly, bit of fortran and likely C. You simply cannot match that level of reliability these days, because people started to forget how to do that... Look at cars and everything else...

Voyager runs on assembly. only 10 instructions. Very simple and real RISC processor
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