Old software keeping space missions alive
1–10 of 67 posts
Re: Old software keeping space missions alive
#2The spacecraft doesn't have a fuel gauge ...
Zoom call with 100 Airbus engineers ...
The original software for part of the onboard navigation system was running on a Windows 98 PC that no-one could find the password to and ended up using bolt cutters to extract the hard drives.
Talk about a deep space horror story!
Re: Old software keeping space missions alive
#3How about traveling-wave vacuum tubes from the pre-transistor era. Doesn't Voyager use them to generate its RF transmission power?
Re: Old software keeping space missions alive
#4jesus christ, i dont think ive ever seen an article that beats around the bush for as long as this one does before finally getting to the point.
anyways, for those who don't have the patience, the title is misleading. it's just some old software from the 90s. It's only ancient if you're one of those people who completely rewrites their entire code base from the ground up every two years because to pad out your resume with whatever bullshit new "framework" is in vogue. Contrary to popular belief you actually can just keep using the same software indefinitely, it doesn't degrade with age, and for the most part the hardware lasts pretty long too as long as you take care of it (with a few exceptions like optical drives and SSDs).
Re: Old software keeping space missions alive
#5jesus christ, i dont think ive ever seen an article that beats around the bush for as long as this one does before finally getting to the point. anyways, for those who don't have the patience, the title is misleading. it's just some old software from the 90s. It's only ancient if you're one of those people who completely rewrites their entire code base from the ground up every two years because to pad out your resume…
There's a little more to it. If your original team retires because of old age, that's a lot of wisdom lost. Not everyone wants to learn COBOL to keep planes in the air and the IRS running, imagine needing to figure out the low level code on something millions of miles away with half the hardware broken, the battery cracked and leaking – and if the software update doesn't work, the entire mission is over?
It's altogether amazing.
Re: Old software keeping space missions alive
#6How about traveling-wave vacuum tubes from the pre-transistor era. Doesn't Voyager use them to generate its RF transmission power?
It does! But the really interesting thing is that travelling wave tubes are still being used for quite a few modern satellite designs. For example, SiriusXM used them in SXM-9/10, and is probably using them in SXM-11/12.
Re: Old software keeping space missions alive
#7jesus christ, i dont think ive ever seen an article that beats around the bush for as long as this one does before finally getting to the point. anyways, for those who don't have the patience, the title is misleading. it's just some old software from the 90s. It's only ancient if you're one of those people who completely rewrites their entire code base from the ground up every two years because to pad out your resume…
Agreed. The older I get, the saltier I get when I read anything that refers to something from the 90s as "ancient".
Re: Old software keeping space missions alive
#8How about traveling-wave vacuum tubes from the pre-transistor era. Doesn't Voyager use them to generate its RF transmission power?
Yes, they're used in the rf power amplifiers. Both the X-band amps use tubes, and one of the pair of S-band amps does. The other is solid state. I don't know what drove this decision back then - they're presumably mission-critical so perhaps they were separately sourced.
Re: Old software keeping space missions alive
#9jesus christ, i dont think ive ever seen an article that beats around the bush for as long as this one does before finally getting to the point. anyways, for those who don't have the patience, the title is misleading. it's just some old software from the 90s. It's only ancient if you're one of those people who completely rewrites their entire code base from the ground up every two years because to pad out your resume…
Not to mention that they confuse RAM with storage. The iPhone 14 certainly doesn't have a minimum of 128 GB of RAM.
Re: Old software keeping space missions alive
#10How about traveling-wave vacuum tubes from the pre-transistor era. Doesn't Voyager use them to generate its RF transmission power?
It does! But the really interesting thing is that travelling wave tubes are still being used for quite a few modern satellite designs. For example, SiriusXM used them in SXM-9/10, and is probably using them in SXM-11/12.
Yes travelling wave tubes are still very common on modern satellites. They tend to be used most on high power (>50W RF power)/high frequency (K-band and higher) systems. I don't know the exact rationale, but for space systems in the higher frequency and power regimes travelling wave tubes are still more reliable than solid state power amplifiers. Traveling wave tubes are still in the 40-50% efficiency range so they're not out of range with efficiency of some solid state devices as well.