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Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#201

Post by aardvarkr »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #145

Whenever such an announcement is made, I keep asking myself something along the lines: "Just how much stuff did they put on board that thing, that there is always some way of using something differently or something different, to get back a working connection???" Incredible engineering.

I remember learning about Hubble telescope losing its gyroscopes in one axis so it couldn’t balance and was effectively dead until someone clever figured out you could use the pressure from the sun to act as a third axis of motion to keep the craft stable. Sometimes it’s not just the stuff onboard but the ingenuity of the engineers that saves the day

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#202

Post by tapland »

smcin wrote: post #196
bluGill wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't use your 25 year old phone for more than a snake game. most 2g towers have been turned off to make room for 4g and 5g.

In the US, North America, you mean. 2G is still alive and kicking, especially in Africa and South Asia: https://streetwave.co/mobile-networks/2g-switch-off-by-count... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G#Phase-out

And Europe. Finalizing the shutdowns of 2G and 3G networks in Sweden during 2025.

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#204

Post by darwin11 »

It's just amazing how little progress in space flight has been since then and since the Apollo missions. I was just looking at some newspapers from 1969 (saved by my mother-in-law) and it was all about the Moon mission, and what awaits us - they talked about settlements throughout the Solar system, flying cars and so on and so on. Given what happened since, it was a huge disappointment. And now ancient Voyager is our last best hope to explore the outer rim.

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#205

Post by WalterBright »

mmooss wrote: post #184
WalterBright wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not clear to me that the probe we send to one place for one purpose is the same we'd send to another. We've launched twins before. The two Voyagers, for example. Two Vikings, for another. When we build different airplane models, quite a bit comes from other airplanes. Even if the parts aren't identical, they are usually just resized or tweaked or modernized. Look at all the 737 variants, and the 747 variants,…

> We've launched twins before. The two Voyagers, for example. Two Vikings, for another. Good point. Do we know the marginal cost of the second one? Why don't we send twins now? > When we build different airplane models, quite a bit comes from other airplanes. I expect we're already doing that with space probes, to the degree it's possible. I feel like some of your argument is the old 'these people are idiots and I kn…

I worked for 3 years on the 757 stabilizer trim system and gearbox. My opinions on this are not those of a layman.

I also worked for a time as an electronics assembly guy (i.e. gnome). One task was to assemble 10 RS-232 electronic cards, all the same. The first one took me 2 hours. The last one 20 minutes.

The first time I took the intake manifold off of my V8 Mustang, it took me 2 hours. The 4th time, 20 minutes.

The same acceleration happens when I assemble IKEA furniture. Or when I helped a friend change 4 brake rotors on his car.

This is not because I invented a more efficient process. It's simply that I knew what to do.

I flat out do not believe there's something about space hardware that makes this not possible.

P.S. The service manager at a car dealer once told me that changing the alternator would cost 2 hours of a mechanic's time. I told him if it took more than 20 minutes the mechanic was incompetent, and proceeded to explain to the manager step-by-step what the exact procedure was for that model car. The result was I got a much better deal :-)

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#206

Post by picture »

NavinF wrote: post #147
picture wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is about the overall engineering of Voyager, not just the programming. Also, I'm skeptical how much better modern hardware will fare in deep space conditions, considering the use of finer and more fragile electronics. Since you're talking about general people instead of specialists, also consider how the median software developer seem to focus less on correctness, reliability, and optimization, compared to t…

> skeptical how much better modern hardware will fare in deep space conditions Why? Deep space radiation is only 4x the dosage compared to LEO. Starlink satellites use modern tech and they've spent >10,000 collective years in space since we launched more than 2 of them. The whole "modern electronics are more fragile" issue is overblown. The CPUs are tiny and easy to shield. The MMICs use huge features that you can se…

Where did you get the number of 4x from? It seems different than what I understand, but I don't have any sources handy.

"Modern electronics are more fragile" issue really is not overblown. One of my peers have tested different types of non volatile memory in LEO and the TLC NAND sample gets totally wiped by ionizing radiation within the first week. CPUs, while being mostly logic and less susceptible to low energy events, can still be easily destroyed especially if radiation causes latchup. MMICs and discrete devices have huge features in comparison yes, but the junctions still degrade notably under radiation.

From my opinion as someone working on LEO satellite hardware, it's easy to have opinions about stuff like correctness and reliability because it is not naturally intuitive and usually requires observation of many samples over a long time that it doesn't affect most engineers. However, I've definitely seen a strong correlation between the effort spent on correctness and reliability, and the success of missions.

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#207

Post by NL807 »

cmonreally123 wrote: post #167
NL807 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We have finite resources So design systems that does not exceed those resources.

Why? You increase cost for what? The Boeing example I believe related to this defect which occurs after 51 days of operation: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theregister.com/AMP/2020/04... This seems sane given that the planes don't operate for 51 days constantly (I'm not in aerospace so please correct me, it seems a reboot could occur with refueling without issue)

Why? Because it's indicative of shit engineering.

"Let's build something that we KNOW will catastrophically fail, because we deliberately ignore to take account limited resource availability of that system."

For a critical systems, that's just lazy and unacceptable.

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#208

Post by selcuka »

smcin wrote: post #196
bluGill wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't use your 25 year old phone for more than a snake game. most 2g towers have been turned off to make room for 4g and 5g.

In the US, North America, you mean. 2G is still alive and kicking, especially in Africa and South Asia: https://streetwave.co/mobile-networks/2g-switch-off-by-count... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G#Phase-out

Australia is shutting down 3G this year.

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#209

Post by suzzer99 »

johnklos wrote: post #152

I think the Voyager probes teach us lots about what's wrong with corporate America. Imagine devices that don't have built-in obsolescence, or licensing that expires, or that isn't built by committee where they just keep shipping requirements around from one department to another. Imagine if it weren't all proprietary and if it didn't have no public or even complete documentation. Think of all the problems we have ins…

I'm 55 and still using my Onkyo receiver and Polk speakers from college.

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#210

Post by mmooss »

WalterBright wrote: post #205
mmooss wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've launched twins before. The two Voyagers, for example. Two Vikings, for another. Good point. Do we know the marginal cost of the second one? Why don't we send twins now? > When we build different airplane models, quite a bit comes from other airplanes. I expect we're already doing that with space probes, to the degree it's possible. I feel like some of your argument is the old 'these people are idiots and I kn…

I worked for 3 years on the 757 stabilizer trim system and gearbox. My opinions on this are not those of a layman. I also worked for a time as an electronics assembly guy (i.e. gnome). One task was to assemble 10 RS-232 electronic cards, all the same. The first one took me 2 hours. The last one 20 minutes. The first time I took the intake manifold off of my V8 Mustang, it took me 2 hours. The 4th time, 20 minutes. Th…

> I flat out do not believe there's something about space hardware that makes this not possible.

I agree. I'm sure everyone at NASA agrees as well. I won't go on and talk us into a circle.

Another issue may be that NASA often pushes the bleeding edge of space exploration - that is part of their job. Commercial companies can handle the the already established tech like orbital launch.

There's an excellent National Academies report on NASA from this past spring, which includes a great section on current leading missions, and the technologies needed, including those that must be developed. NASA seems to develop new tech for every mission; they take on missions before the R&D is done on many components - they seem to be just theories. That might be hard to mass produce.

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