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Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth

cnn.com

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Re: Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth

#141

Post by squidbeak »

deadbabe wrote: post #58
echelon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope so!

I doubt it more and more these days. So many improbable things need to line up perfectly for this to happen. There may be alien civilizations, but they might be on worlds without the adequate resources or the right type of gravity to reach escape velocity. And there simply hasn’t been enough time in the universe for many space faring civilizations to have arisen yet. We might be really early.

So long as it isn't impossible, the improbable becomes inevitable at scales as vast as the universe.

Re: Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth

#142

Post by sfifs »

anonymous_sorry wrote: post #93

> Initially designed to last five years NASA tech often seems to outlive its initial mission length by a massive margin. The Mars rovers spring to mind. It's incredibly impressive, and almost embarrassing! Surely this isn't accidental. Is the kit massively over-specced? Do the uncertainties and risks necessitate such a depth of redundancy that when stuff goes kinda smoothly the thing lasts 9 times longer than it was…

Organizations always react to incentives and all of the above and more are probably at play.

The funding incentives are probably such that failure means leadership is hauled before political theatre and accused of wasting people's taxes Vs say SpaceX where it's let's blow up one more rocket.

The political situation also probably makes it infeasible to ask for or rely on long term program commitments (which is tied to scientist & engineer employment) but once the hardware is already in place, getting extensions is probably quite cheap and non controversial

All these probably incentivize a risk averse and over engineering culture. Of course that benefits science fans, so I'd say more power to them :-)

Re: Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth

#143

Post by drivebyadvice »

anonymous_sorry wrote: post #93

> Initially designed to last five years NASA tech often seems to outlive its initial mission length by a massive margin. The Mars rovers spring to mind. It's incredibly impressive, and almost embarrassing! Surely this isn't accidental. Is the kit massively over-specced? Do the uncertainties and risks necessitate such a depth of redundancy that when stuff goes kinda smoothly the thing lasts 9 times longer than it was…

Trick I learned from an old wrench: overestimate time and cost, then when you deliver something in half the time and half the cost they'll think you're twice the mechanic.

I'm not sure that's what NASA does, but it certainly doesn't hurt their PR.

Re: Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth

#145

Post by citrus1330 »

ciroduran wrote: post #96

LOL @ CNN blocking Firefox! "Browser Blocked We apologize, but your web browser is configured in such a way that it is preventing this site from implementing required components that protect your privacy and allow you to view and change your privacy settings. This functionality is required for privacy legislation in your region. We recommend you use a different browser or disable the “EasyList Cookie” filter from you…

They aren't blocking Firefox, it's one of your add-ons

Re: Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth

#146

Post by pavel_lishin »

interstice wrote: post #122
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you design so that it has a 99.9999% chance of working for 5 years it's going to work for much longer. It'd be very hard to design it in a way that it didn't.

Would it be cheaper/equally effective to go for one less decimal place and make 10 of them?

To quote S.R. Hadden from Contact: "First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"

Re: Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth

#147

Post by unethical_ban »

smitty1110 wrote: post #3

A less alarmist and clickbait article can be found here: https://www.popsci.com/science/voyager-computer-issue/ NASA press release here: https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/2023/12/12/engineers-working-... TL;DR - Voyager is sending back bad data, they're working on it.

Honestly, until the headline says "permanently" or "destroyed" I just assume it's a glitch they'll spend a few weeks 24/7 investigating.

Re: Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth

#148

Post by catchnear4321 »

pjot wrote: post #6

Voyager 1 is so far away that it takes 22.5 hours for commands sent from Earth to reach the spacecraft. Additionally, the team must wait 45 hours to receive a response. I’m guessing “hotfix” commits don’t exist in this domain

and yet likely more than a few people will be sweating for close to two days.

Re: Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth

#149

Post by calamari4065 »

lordnacho wrote: post #26

How is it possible to still be able to get a signal from a spacecraft that's so far away? How can the antenna be directional enough while still being pointed right at the Earth? How do we remove the noise?

A ridiculously huge and powerful array of antennas spread across the planet.

NASA has a dashboard online for the Deep Space Network and you can see live which spacecraft we're communicating with. The Voyagers are usually active any time I look.

Re: Voyager 1 stops communicating with Earth

#150

Post by iambateman »

anonymous_sorry wrote: post #93

> Initially designed to last five years NASA tech often seems to outlive its initial mission length by a massive margin. The Mars rovers spring to mind. It's incredibly impressive, and almost embarrassing! Surely this isn't accidental. Is the kit massively over-specced? Do the uncertainties and risks necessitate such a depth of redundancy that when stuff goes kinda smoothly the thing lasts 9 times longer than it was…

I think it’s political. It’s untenable to tell the public that it will work for “15 years with a 95% confidence interval” and have it fail after 14 years. There would be congressional hearings.

But you must give a number, so sandbagging makes sense.

It’s the same thing with telling your wife when you’ll be home…if you say 7pm and it’s 7:05, you’re late and dinner is cold. But if you say 8:30 and it’s 7:05, you’re a hero.

Today, Voyager 1 leaves a hero.

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