NASA's Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters • Hacker News Board

Re: NASA's Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

#21

Post by KineticLensman » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 10:06 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #11

qingcharles wrote: post #10

Is it just me that really wants to FOIA the firmware code to read it? What is it written in? Assembler, surely? What is the development toolchain like in 2023 for a 70s computer? Do they have an emulator? What happened to the spare development Voyager they had lying around?

Not Voyager but here’s code from the Apollo program: https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11/

Highly recommend 'Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir' by Don Eyles who gives a programmer's perspective on the software aspects of Apollo. Some of which were fairly nail-biting, especially when they occurred in-flight.

Re: NASA's Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

#22

Post by KineticLensman » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 10:12 AM UTC

lloeki wrote: post #14

btilly wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the planetary alignment that let us send them only happens once every 175 years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour_program

> let us New Horizons would like to have a word.

New Horizons, like many other spacecraft, used gravity assists from planets (Jupiter in its case) but the specific combo of assists available to Voyager will not in fact occur again until the year 2224 [0].

[0] http://www.gravityassist.com/IAF3-2/Ref.%203-143.pdf, section 3.4

Re: NASA's Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

#23

Post by JKCalhoun » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 11:55 AM UTC

Xiol32 wrote: post #15

Shadowmist wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Aren’t they gas giants? Uranus is for sure.

Risky move making a joke on HN.

Riskier still making a dad joke on HN.

Re: NASA's Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

#24

Post by belter » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 12:50 PM UTC

qingcharles wrote: post #10

Is it just me that really wants to FOIA the firmware code to read it? What is it written in? Assembler, surely? What is the development toolchain like in 2023 for a 70s computer? Do they have an emulator? What happened to the spare development Voyager they had lying around?

That has been done before. You can't get it as FOIA as it's not a government record.

https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/voy...

"The spacecrafts’ original control and analysis software was written in Fortran 5 (later ported to Fortran 77). Some of the software is still in Fortran, though other pieces have now been ported to the somewhat more modern C."

"To keep the Voyager 1 and 2 crafts going, NASA's new hire has to know FORTRAN and assembly languages." - https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a17991/voyager-1-voya...

Re: NASA's Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

#25

Post by lloeki » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 1:08 PM UTC

KineticLensman wrote: post #22

lloeki wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let us New Horizons would like to have a word.

New Horizons, like many other spacecraft, used gravity assists from planets (Jupiter in its case) but the specific combo of assists available to Voyager will not in fact occur again until the year 2224 [0]. [0] http://www.gravityassist.com/IAF3-2/Ref.%203-143.pdf , section 3.4

Sure, I mean we won't get to do a Grand Tour again anytime soon but we can and did send things either to planets or heliopause and beyond.

As a nearby comment mentions, Voyager were flybys so now that it's done and even if we could ROI may very well be lower than sending more focused orbiters (for planets and moons) or deep space crafts (for peristellar/interstellar)

Re: NASA's Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

#26

Post by jgalt212 » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 1:28 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #4

Pioneer 10 is technically further away, just dead as a rock without power (no comm for 20 years) Voyager website is awesome https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/timeline/ A very different time, thank goodness for DEI now https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/assets/images/timeline/0003.jpg

> A very different time, thank goodness for DEI now

or a picture of senior leadership at Google.

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Re: NASA's Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

#27

Post by bullen » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 1:35 PM UTC

Mandatory reminder for Voyager: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H62hZJVqs2o

Re: NASA's Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

#28

Post by protoman3000 » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 1:45 PM UTC

I'm curious about how the upload to these spacecrafts is secured. We're talking about 1977 technology. What prevents an antisocial troll or adversial state to upload broken firmware?

Re: NASA's Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

#29

Post by cjreyes » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 1:52 PM UTC

protoman3000 wrote: post #28

I'm curious about how the upload to these spacecrafts is secured. We're talking about 1977 technology. What prevents an antisocial troll or adversial state to upload broken firmware?

Likely somewhat modern tech to access the deep space network required to upload to the spacecraft.

Re: NASA's Voyager Team Focuses on Software Patch, Thrusters

#30

Post by infogulch » Sat, Oct 21, 2023, 1:54 PM UTC

gdprrrr wrote: post #16

infogulch wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Astrophysicists have some funny conventions. Like how everything but hydrogen and helium are "metals": https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/20120...

Those 2% "metals" are basically considered a rounding error and can be ignored. Also π ≈ 1. https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2205:_Types_of_Ap...

Is that true? I don't know if I can trust a person made of metal.