NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has experienced a computer glitch that’s causing a bit of a communication breakdown between the 46-year-old probe and its mission team on Earth.

  • @originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee
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    3041 year ago

    For those who didn’t read the article, voyager 1 is still sending and transmitting data. It’s stuck in a loop sending the same packets to Earth on repeat but it is receiving commands just fine. It’s not completely dark.

    • @NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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      1041 year ago

      That’s fantastic, that means all they have to do is reset some components and it should restore functionality. I say should, it’s still a scary thing to turn on/off components om a satellite bcz you aren’t guaranteed they’ll come on. Nasa people usually prefer soft resets to hard resets of components, but we’ll see what happens.

      One of the satellites I worked on had to have a software update to do a soft reset of a component every time it tried to write certain data. It was really scary bcz we thought we had lost one of our redundancies right after launch, which would have sucked.

      But, we didn’t. Anyway, just wanted to give a little bit of insight into what the FOT might be thinking about while they’re trying to recover the satellite to nominal state.

      • @originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee
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        651 year ago

        Yeah I got very sad when I saw the headline and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Voyager 1’s death will be far sadder than most public figures. Maybe any.

        • @NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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          341 year ago

          Same, for a moment I was really concerned. Voyager is like a lifetime achievement for humanity at this point. When it stops communicating its going to be a big loss for the scientific community, and population as a whole. I’m not looking forward to hearing about its loss of functionality in the next decade or so.

            • @NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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              21 year ago

              I really can’t say, I’m not privy to any of the outer solar system projects that might be in the works. Voyager was originally intended to do flyby of the outer planets, and then it headed out of the solar system. I think the trajectory was always designed with the idea that it could exit the solar system. As far as I’m aware, we’ve done a few missions to asteroids, but nothing that is going out to do flyby of the outer planets. But, I could be wrong, don’t take my word for it. All of the stuff I have worked on has been near earth, or pointing away from the earth but still within the vicinity of L1 and L2 Lagrange points.

              You’d be surprised how many missions nasa has in the works at any one time.

              • @intensely_human@lemm.ee
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                -11 year ago

                From ChatGPT just now:

                Me: Summarize projects active as of early 2022 involving plans to send objects out of the solar system

                ChatGPT (v4) Voyager 1 and 2: Continuing their journey, both launched in the 1970s. They are studying the outer solar system and interstellar space. New Horizons: After its Pluto flyby, it’s on an extended mission to explore the Kuiper Belt and beyond.

                Pioneer 10 and 11: Although no longer sending data, they continue to travel out of the solar system.

                Interstellar Probe Study: A NASA conceptual study for a mission to explore the interstellar medium.

                Breakthrough Starshot Initiative: A research and engineering project aiming to develop a proof-of-concept fleet of light sail spacecraft, capable of making the journey to Alpha Centauri.

                NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Programs: Some concepts under study, such as solar sails and fusion propulsion, could potentially send craft out of the solar system. These projects represent a blend of ongoing missions, conceptual studies, and advanced propulsion research with potential applications for future interstellar travel.

                • @intensely_human@lemm.ee
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                  11 year ago

                  Incidentally, the light sail starshot project is talking about speeds of 0.3c.

                  I fucking love that project. Heard about it from Neil Tyson.

            • @Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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              21 year ago

              I think when we have space based fuel and fabrication infrastructure we’ll be able to make some interesting projects, some huge thing that just burns its rockets at full power through the solar system.

              Or a very robust probe fired from a giant nuclear cannon on the dark side of the moon. If you start the journey at top speed that cuts out all the acceleration time, we could have stuff popping off in every direction.

        • @gazter@aussie.zone
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          101 year ago

          I don’t know if I would consider Voyager to be ‘dead’ if it stops transmitting.

          If I put a message in a bottle, with a blinky light on it, then throw it into the ocean, the message is still there even if the blinky light goes out.

    • Karyoplasma
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      91 year ago

      How do we know that it’s receiving commands fine? I am assuming pinging Voyager 1 might take a while.

      • @intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        61 year ago

        It takes 45 hours and that’s a good question.

        Perhaps there are multiple distinct channels with one for command responses and another for scientific data?

          • @Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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            -11 year ago

            One of the main people who raised concern about rockets full of nuclear material exploding above populated areas was mitchio kaku. He certainly has a good few clues about radiation and nuclear physics.

          • @MrShankles@reddthat.com
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            31 year ago

            As a smoker: I’m not clueless, I just don’t love myself more than the addiction. But I’m getting there, cause breathing “easily” is an under-rated pleasure, when compared to… not breathing that well

            It can take time to break the mental stuff before breaking the habit, regardless of understood risk

            Now magnets though… I’m at a complete fucking loss

      • Elbrar
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        21 year ago

        RTGs are still used for outer solar system missions. Not enough light for solar panels. Hell, even the Perseverance Mars rover, which was launched in 2020, has an RTG.

    • Vincent
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      401 year ago

      They actually did:

      The Voyager team sent commands over the weekend for the spacecraft to restart the flight data system, but no usable data has come back yet, according to NASA.

      Unfortunately, that didn’t help. So now they’ll have to find out what’s causing this, and then see if they can fix it.

  • @FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
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    291 year ago

    When the new intern presses shut down instead of disconnect while connected to the production server

  • @Jramskov@feddit.dk
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    1 year ago

    https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/2023/12/12/engineers-working-to-resolve-issue-with-voyager-1-computer/

    Engineers are working to resolve an issue with one of Voyager 1’s three onboard computers, called the flight data system (FDS). The spacecraft is receiving and executing commands sent from Earth; however, the FDS is not communicating properly with one of the probe’s subsystems, called the telemetry modulation unit (TMU). As a result, no science or engineering data is being sent back to Earth.

  • @sneezymrmilo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Bit of a misleading title. The voyager can still receive commands and send data to earth, the problem is that instead of useful data it just keeps sending repeating code of no use. Not a huge fan of these sensationalized and just blatantly wrong news article titles.

      • @duplexsystem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        91 year ago

        From what I read they can talk to the CCS (Computer Command System) just fine but the CCS is getting garbled data from the FDS (Flight Data Subsystem)

        • @theneverfox@pawb.social
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          41 year ago

          It’s actually just gotten far enough that the data is being rendered at lower fidelity to save resources

          They didn’t expect us to get sensors outside the heliosphere before winning the game, but players always immediately find crazy and unexpected ways to break your games

      • @sneezymrmilo@lemmy.world
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        121 year ago

        Haha I mean that’s fair. Although I’m mainly just displeased with the title of the article. Its worded in a way that conveys that we’ve lost contact with the satellite completely, which is not the case. Just a bit too click baity for my tastes.

        • Jojo
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          01 year ago

          I didn’t quite read it that way, but I can see how someone could read it that way. It does really seem like the probe is having problems with its internals, less than “communication has stopped”

  • Captain Aggravated
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    381 year ago

    “Amazingly old spacecraft is starting to break.”

    Voyager 1 has had an exceptional service life, the poor old thing is tired.

    • @intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      131 year ago

      I hope they can say that about me one day

      “He was basically built to live 75 years. Fortunately for us, and for science, he’s still sending back signals these 4,000 years later”

      • Captain Aggravated
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        31 year ago

        Nope! Not me. I’m kinda hoping to undershoot the median age. My warranty’s expired and I really don’t know if I’m up for the “maybe we can find parts at the You-Pick” stage of existence.