Voyager 1 (and 2) still going at it - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: TimNJ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 03:37:40 pm
content: I just stumbled upon this article on Google News.http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/28/voyager_magnetic_highway/Talk about reliability. 35+ years in space and still going strong. That's incredible.

author: Kaluriel
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 04:39:36 pm
content: those were the days before management took over you were required to have a meeting to reach a deadline. instead it was all moon bases, space lasers and competition to see who was the cooler country. unfortunately for us when we do colonise Mars, we'll be from the uncool planet

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 06:51:02 pm
content: Apparently Voyager 1 is expected to last until 2025 before it can't talk back (due to loss of RTG power) -- over 50 years! Impressive stuff.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 07:07:33 pm
content: Quote from: Kaluriel on June 28, 2013, 04:39:36 pmwhat!

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 07:41:54 pm
content: And note that on Voyager 2 the radio is faulty, one dead capacitor in the receiver that was supposed to do frequency compensation, so that to send commands you have to both send with high power and on multiple frequencies. Receiving the 10w transmission is also impressive, the beamwidth of the transmit antenna at present covers the entire inner solar system and then some, so luckily the spacecraft does not have to do any aiming manoeuvres, which would have depleted the hydrazine reserves decades ago.Still more than enough fuel left to manoeuvre with, it will not be a limiting factor even with it being used every few months to do an attitude change to sense different magnetic field orientations. Stuck imager platform and not enough power anyway to run the imagers, RTG running a little lower than predicted, a bad secondary receiver and a faulty main one and still it keeps on working and delivering decades past the original 10 year expected lifetime.Only things that will work at the end of 2050 when power drops too low are the main processor, attitude control, magnetometers and the star trackers. Power will be there for them, but not enough to drive the transmitter at anything like full power of 10W needed to talk to earth, but receive will still work for decades more. In 200 years time it will still be faithfully pointing to the position of earth, lost as a dot in the starscape, with barely enough power to still carry out the original mission of discovery.Just consider the data memory is a tape drive, now nearing 40 years of using the same tape, and you thought 8 tracks were dead.

author: TimNJ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 07:59:36 pm
content: It's really quite amazing!

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 08:37:35 pm
content: And you can follow them on Twitter........https://twitter.com/NASAVoyager2

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 09:50:44 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on June 28, 2013, 07:41:54 pmI know I shouldn't anthropomorphise tech, but reading that made me feel kinda sad. Proud, but sad.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 10:36:14 pm
content: Quote from: Kaluriel on June 28, 2013, 04:39:36 pmWe (USA) right now have no active plan to go to Mars. China said they want to, but I don't know if they have an active plan to do so. I sure like to see us human beings having a foot-hold on some place other than earth. As Carl Sagan said, if we don't, we will surely extinct. Sooner or later, that asteroid with our name on it will strike, or our sun will literally be on our backyard as it goes into the red-giant phase.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 10:40:36 pm
content: I just think it'd be nice to mine things other than the planet we currently live on. There's a lot of useful stuff out there in the solar system.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 11:08:32 pm
content: Freaking awesome.That is all.

author: digsys
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 11:22:49 pm
content: Yeah, but in 20+ yrs time, I'll probably be the poor tech that has to go out to service it, because all the young techs are too lazy,or busy with their iPod 20s !!

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 28, 2013, 11:54:50 pm
content: We should start a kickstarter to fly Dave out there on the first warp or ion drive to do an onsite teardown."It's all hand soldered and looks like crap!" "What were they thinking with this creepage distance?!"

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 12:55:36 am
content: "Sex on a stick!"

author: Mr Smiley
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 01:25:04 am
content: Quote from: BulletMagnet83 on June 28, 2013, 10:40:36 pmYeh, lets go and destroy other planets for their minerals without any consideration for ecosystem or present lifeforms. Just like we do hereYou've seen all the alien films like 'independence day', they go from planet to planet taking all they can and leaving behind an environmental disaster without a care in the world, well those nasty inconsiderate greedy aliens,,, that’s US.The day we achieve long distance space flight, is going to be a sad day for the universe

author: lemmegraphdat
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 01:43:37 am
content: Quote from: Mr Smiley on June 29, 2013, 01:25:04 amMost planets in this system are useless. Anything we do to them will be an improvement. In fact we'll have to terraform them before they even have an ecosystem we can exploit.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 01:48:57 am
content: Yeah we've been here for millions or billions of years and haven't quite managed to mine our planet to the point it looks like a giant apple core in space. I think we're ok.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 03:23:27 am
content: Quote from: digsys on June 28, 2013, 11:22:49 pmThey'll be listening to the MP90 recording of the lalakiss song 'kill the humans' (hyperdrive s1e4)

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 03:32:33 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on June 29, 2013, 03:23:27 amI have to use .MP90 files because I just can't stand to listen to any kind of music recorded at anything lower than 192Tb/s sample rate.

author: nukie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 10:15:51 am
content: I like to shake the guys hand who made Voyagers and thank him for his great work.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 10:35:40 am
content: They probably are still working as consultants at JPL. Nobody else understands how these veteran units works.

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 01:17:08 pm
content: Quote from: Mr Smiley on June 29, 2013, 01:25:04 amI don't think there are any other lifeforms present on other bodies in our solar system, and until proven otherwise I'm all in favour of off-world mining operations to give the ecosystem we DO know exists a chance to recover. That said, if we suffer a massive population implosion there may not be a need to do that.. but there's a lot of minerals sitting around out there doing nothing. Makes sense to me to make use of them!

author: benemorius
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 07:41:04 pm
content: Quote from: BulletMagnet83 on June 29, 2013, 01:17:08 pmNot that I disagree, but is there actually any shortage of resources on this planet to begin with? I guess I've just taken it for granted that we won't have any resource problems once we rid ourselves the government/ruling-class problems.

author: ahnuts72
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 08:03:46 pm
content: On the mining note there's alot of resources in the solar system without having to touch any planets.Eg. AsteroidsSent from my Milestone X using Tapatalk 2

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 08:46:36 pm
content: I know I shouldn't feel for a piece of machinery, but I can't help think of this comic when I hear Voyager is still going, still talking back well past its design lifetime.

author: ahnuts72
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 09:11:30 pm
content: +1 tom66Never seen that one beforeAlmost fell outta my bulldozer laughing.Sent from my Milestone X using Tapatalk 2

author: lemmegraphdat
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 11:26:23 pm
content: At panel 2 my heart sank a bit

author: digsys
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 29, 2013, 11:55:25 pm
content: Well, he's damn lucky he's not an apple product !!! First sign of a flickering LED and a replacement would be there,with the first task to put him out of his misery !! Eventually, Mars would be full of dead apples :-)

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2013, 03:40:26 am
content: Quote from: lemmegraphdat on June 29, 2013, 11:26:23 pmYeah,a bit reminiscent of being sent away to "the bush" for "3 weeks relief duty" & coming back 13 years later!It didn't happen to me,but it did to quite a number of guys.Of course,after day 365 or so,they sort of realised that they might as well settle in.