41–50 of 109 posts
I am always baffled by the conundrum of the futility of launching a spacecraft to go far away by our own ability to invent faster engines. Say it takes 300 years to get to Alpha Centauri. If you launch it you have 150 years to invent a spacecraft that goes twice the speed of the first one. Very likely. If you launch that one it will overtake the other one. Now you have 75 years to find an even faster engine. Launch i…
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Just FYI nothing man made is even close to light years away from the Earth. EDIT: I don't understand the downvotes. Isn't this just fact? EDIT 2: I see the OP changed his original comment, so I can understand the confusion. Thanks all :)
> EDIT: I don't understand the downvotes. Isn't this just fact? Nobody's questioning that fact (barring well-deserved pedantry about radio signals), but GP's claim was light days so the downvotes are probably about the nonsequitur.
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Voyager 1 is 0.00234 light years from Earth, Voyager 2 is 0.00194 ly. Or in more useful units: 20.5 and 17 light hours. Also we do not receive images any more (the cameras were made for planetary encounters and have been turned off long ago). But yes, getting data (at 160 bits per second) from man made objects that are the better part of a light day away is impressive. Even more so because they have been working for…
Are they powered via PV? IIRC one of them (satellite/probes) had some nuclear fuel.
According to JPL[2] at least one scientific instrument will continue functioning until about 2025, and the crafts will remain in range of the Deep Space Network until 2036.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...
[2] https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/frequently-asked-questions/
I am always baffled by the conundrum of the futility of launching a spacecraft to go far away by our own ability to invent faster engines. Say it takes 300 years to get to Alpha Centauri. If you launch it you have 150 years to invent a spacecraft that goes twice the speed of the first one. Very likely. If you launch that one it will overtake the other one. Now you have 75 years to find an even faster engine. Launch i…
"Why should I buy a computer today, when a computer in 10 years can do a ton more for less money?"
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Voyager 1 is 0.00234 light years from Earth, Voyager 2 is 0.00194 ly. Or in more useful units: 20.5 and 17 light hours. Also we do not receive images any more (the cameras were made for planetary encounters and have been turned off long ago). But yes, getting data (at 160 bits per second) from man made objects that are the better part of a light day away is impressive. Even more so because they have been working for…
Are they powered via PV? IIRC one of them (satellite/probes) had some nuclear fuel.
Consider that light emitted from the Sun will decay with the square of the distance – as it is irradiated in all directions. To Voyager, the Sun looks like an ordinary star – although one much brighter than the others. Not much energy can be harvested there.
Until recently, photovoltaics were useless as far away as Jupiter. Given the tech advancements, we can now use them there (and have). Farther than that and you are bumping into practical limits.
I suppose the idea is that there is more to be gained via specialized missions inside the solar system, compared with new long running extreme range probes, but you would think there might be some value in starting to send a chain of probes out, so that communication can be maintained even further.
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Are they powered via PV? IIRC one of them (satellite/probes) had some nuclear fuel.
Both Voyager 1 and 2 use RTG's (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators)[1] for power. Every year the RTG puts out less and less power, so instruments are gradually powered down to preserve the functionality of the critical ones for as long as possible. According to JPL[2] at least one scientific instrument will continue functioning until about 2025, and the crafts will remain in range of the Deep Space Network until…
I'm amazed and still can't get my head around how today we can receive images and valuable data from a device which is currently lightdays away from us and was built with 60's technology & know-how and is operating well beyond it's expected lifetime. I raise my glass to the engineers who worked on this. Makes my daily programming tasks feel stupid in comparison. Edit: corrected, thanks for the numbers
Anyone has any details of how its implemented ? Arch diagram of some sort ?
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Yeah but did they use Agile methods and have good team velocity as they burned down the backlog? If not, how can we really be sure the project was a success?
I like your comment but it got down voted into oblivion probably because you forgot the /s tag. Some folks are serious here.