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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

#61

Post by indrex »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #60
astrobe_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's not the kind of instrument that one can turn on and off? TFA says "keep the [probe] warm"; I'm not sure if it's poetry or a necessity; on Earth electronic components guaranteed to operate for maybe -100 °C ~ 100 °C at best but here one must be close to 0 ° K .

I don't see why it would be cold. It's been in the vacuum of space for decades, it's had nowhere to dissipate heat. One of the main challenges in outer space is dissipating heat, not keeping things warm. People freezing when they fall into the vacuum of space is pure fiction: that would only happen near an atmosphere.

Topical - that’s the problem to solve for orbital data centers

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

#62

Post by doublerabbit »

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.

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

#63

Post by gspr »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #60
astrobe_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's not the kind of instrument that one can turn on and off? TFA says "keep the [probe] warm"; I'm not sure if it's poetry or a necessity; on Earth electronic components guaranteed to operate for maybe -100 °C ~ 100 °C at best but here one must be close to 0 ° K .

I don't see why it would be cold. It's been in the vacuum of space for decades, it's had nowhere to dissipate heat. One of the main challenges in outer space is dissipating heat, not keeping things warm. People freezing when they fall into the vacuum of space is pure fiction: that would only happen near an atmosphere.

You still have radiative transfer. The instruments in question probably take significantly less power in than they lose through radiation. So they need to be given extra power to maintain temperature. I.e. they need to be heated.

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

#64

Post by nephihaha »

dmurray wrote: post #29
xvilka wrote: post #27

I wish more robotic missions like that were sent. Not necessarily the most expensive ones, just one that can use only gravity assists and plutonium power generators. They could be relatively small ones. Maybe even trying to ride some of the small rocks/asteroids, now that we have a better catalogues of such.

If by "ride" you mean hitch a lift to somewhere you couldn't get to otherwise, space doesn't work like that. If you want to land on an asteroid/rock, either you match speed with it, in which case you already had enough speed to go wherever it's going, or you intercept it at a different speed, in which case you get smashed to dust if your speed was any more than a few m/s different. Maybe you didn't mean this, but it'…

I've always thought asteroids could be used as automated "weather stations" with probes not just as mission targets in themselves. These could be updated or maintained occasionally.

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

#65

Post by nuccy »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #60
astrobe_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's not the kind of instrument that one can turn on and off? TFA says "keep the [probe] warm"; I'm not sure if it's poetry or a necessity; on Earth electronic components guaranteed to operate for maybe -100 °C ~ 100 °C at best but here one must be close to 0 ° K .

I don't see why it would be cold. It's been in the vacuum of space for decades, it's had nowhere to dissipate heat. One of the main challenges in outer space is dissipating heat, not keeping things warm. People freezing when they fall into the vacuum of space is pure fiction: that would only happen near an atmosphere.

The heat is dissipated by radiation, that's why apart of solar panels all sattelites and space stations also have radiators for thermal management. The average space temperature (far away from stars) is 2.7K (the temperature of cosmic microwave background, CMB), so going below that is hard. Sun would heat up a bit Voyager 2 but at 143au it is just 1/143^2 fraction of solar power on Earth orbit, thus 0.0049%, or just 0.067W/m^2, so extra power is needed to maintain electronics operational.

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

#67

Post by crabette »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #58
LPisGood wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting aside AI, it’s a little outrageous they had her come in to communicate with it rather than write down how to communicate with it.

Yeah, I'm scheduled for surgery, so my insurance carrier says it's outrageous for the surgeon to come into the O.R. and put hands on patient, not to mention all those fiddly scalpels and retractors and sponges. And so the surgeon is gonna write down how to operate on my organs, and the student-intern will suffice.

This is how typical industrial workforce cost saving consulting suggests to operate.

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

#68

Post by hnuser123456 »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #60
astrobe_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's not the kind of instrument that one can turn on and off? TFA says "keep the [probe] warm"; I'm not sure if it's poetry or a necessity; on Earth electronic components guaranteed to operate for maybe -100 °C ~ 100 °C at best but here one must be close to 0 ° K .

I don't see why it would be cold. It's been in the vacuum of space for decades, it's had nowhere to dissipate heat. One of the main challenges in outer space is dissipating heat, not keeping things warm. People freezing when they fall into the vacuum of space is pure fiction: that would only happen near an atmosphere.

It has everywhere to dissipate heat, but only radiatively. But 140 AU from the Sun, there's not much incoming radiant flux.
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