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.
I don’t blame it for cutting off earth. This place is toxic and self destructive.
originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee 11 months 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 11 months 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 11 months 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.
deleted@lemmy.world 11 months ago
So the title did its job which is you understand nothing until you enter their site, drive traffic, display ads, and possibly collect your data in the process.
originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee 11 months ago
Sure and Lemmy did its work by letting me and others relay the info. I hate ads as much as the next guy, especially targeted ads, but the internet is free and I don’t pay CNN a dime so I’ll take the hit for you this time. Next time, you click the clickbait and fill us in ☺️
Exec@pawb.social 11 months ago
Nooo they respect your privacy just share your stuff with 967 of their partners
Confused_Emus@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Ads are a shitty part of the internet experience, but what exactly is your point here…?
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Are we sure it isn’t YouTube trying to insert an ad?
RazorsLedge@lemmy.world 11 months ago
This is the dumbest thing I’ve read today. You got a giggle out of me.
Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months 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 11 months 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?
duplexsystem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
It takes 20+ hours so since the announcement and now they could have send a command and gotten a response
MeanEYE@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Ideally it was an update issue and it’s fixable. However I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a hardware failure due to radiation or something similar. That said, Voyager1 has power only until 2025 or so, since RTGs are designed to last that much. So even if the issue is fixed, its life will only expand by few years. Also, the fact it relies on nuclear power means none of the new stuff will last as long since they stopped using them some time ago due to fear from nuclear energy.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 11 months ago
God forbid we pollute the far reaches of space with radiation. (sic.)
elbrar@pawb.social 11 months 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.
doctorcrimson@lemmy.today 11 months ago
I wonder if it’s struggling with Parity Checks?