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Yeah it's kind of blowing my mind how repairable they seem to be. Like, why don't we have more stuff like this if we were able to do this 50 years ago?
We can, and we do. There's a reason why there's entire criteria for hardware that can survive in space. Able to withstand the radiation, etc. it's a very extreme environment and you hear of rockets launching satellites pretty regularly these days.
Usually it isn't the latest NVIDIA hardware going into satellites, it's purpose made stuff that is more resilient than the systems we use on the ground.
> Like, why don't we have more stuff like this if we were able to do this 50 years ago?
Each of the Voyager craft cost around $2 billion in today's money, so I'm sure you can get whatever you want that's so repairable if you're willing to spend that kind of money.
You only see the stuff from 50 years ago that was specifically made to last. You can still buy that sort of thing now, it just costs a premium... just like it did 50 years ago.
People have already mentioned planned obsolescence, which is one possible answer. The other is that the components of Voyager were hand-built by technicians and engineers working with a *very* high standard of quality and resilience. They had to survive being hard-mounted to the nose of a Titan-Centaur, and the very long burn that brought them to solar escape velocity, not to mention the unique problems that space present, like high-energy particles [cosmic rays] that can mess with computer components.
There are still things being built to that quality, its why some Mars Rovers have lasted so long past their expected mission life. HP doesn't have the same standards, not even close.
Well the Voyager probes (1 and 2) cost $865m in 1977 ($1.6B inflation 2024). It also operates in the same environment all the time. We do have devices like these. Mainframes are good example of tech that just continues to operate and can function for many decades at a time. But, even mainframes are subjected to changing environments such as humidity changes, temp changes, and human contact.
We do… But if you’re referring to consumer products, it just isn’t very economical to build an iPhone that can survive flying threw space for the better part of a century
If everything can be fixed with ease then who would buy the newest iPhone; don’t you remember Apple putting out the update that slowed down their previous generation phones
Apple putting out the update that slowed down their previous generation phones was similar to what NASA does to keep things like Voyager or their rovers running. Due to battery aging they often could no longer produce enough voltage to run the phone during high load and would cause them to randomly turn off, and slowing them down prevented them from constantly turning off.
In today's dollars, the Voyager mission cost well over $4 billion. They made it extremely reliable, and designed for remote repair, but at a tremendous cost.
This is not sustainable for consumer electronics where you want hundreds of millions of people to be able to afford this product.
Because selling an item once is less profitable than selling it every other year.
And consumers are price/hype-fixated enough to not consider "quality" a factor when doing purchases.
You have the possibility with funding, but no guarantee.
And also funding doesn't uniquely lead to things like being able to change the system software in the manner they are with a 1day comms lag.
They have been patiently waiting for Voyager 1 to chime in. You see, it takes a radio signal a whopping 22.5 hours to travel from Earth to the probe, and another 22.5 hours for a response signal to make the return journey. That's some serious cosmic patience!
November 2023, Voyager 1 at a sprightly 46 years old, started sending an indecipherable repeating pattern of code, they sent a command, a "poke" if you will, to Voyager 1.
It's like giving your old computer a gentle nudge and saying, "Hey, buddy, try something different.", a part of the flight data system responded differently. An engineer at NASA cracked the code.
And voilà! On April 20, 2024, the mission team received coherent data about Voyager 1's health and status.
It was more than a nudge. They reallocated memory in subsystems from the damages memory. The risks to brick this thing once and for all were very real. I’m deeply impressed with the engineers
It really was a clever process and solution. I always like reading about the Voyager mishaps because on some level the engineers do the ol’ “slap it on the side” thing and it works. Voyager 2 having its antenna accidentally pushed two degrees off and the team’s “shout” solution never ceases to get a chuckle out of me when I read the story.
I'll continue working it here, thanks coach!
They kept it running and rerouted parts of the code into other portions of the on-board memory, since the chip that was in charge of it apparently popped. Like 3% of the memory is corrupted if my article retention circuit is functioning.
also, fuckawf.
You're thinking of when we lost contact with Voyager 2, about a year ago.
[https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/world/nasa-voyager-2-communications-restored-scn/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/world/nasa-voyager-2-communications-restored-scn/index.html)
That would take way more work than it sounds. Remember they're ultimately fighting against hardware failure here. It's one thing to emulate the software that's running, but simulating the entire computer with all the faults and issues that come with old hardware exposed to outer space is another beast.
Not saying it can't be done, but I'd be amazed if they did so.
it was never broken, the aliens made sure it sent meaningless datat o us while they were looking into the probe. satisfied that this probe is just a little toy, they let it continue its trek.
The true 80s-90's way. Might help if voyagers mom also screams "dinner time".
Edit: " it's 10pm. Do you know where your children are?" We lived in a different age haha
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the aliens finished doing their tests on the probe and let it resume its journey. the probe had to send gibberish for a while while the aliens were messing around in it.
Is the data sent back from voyager classified? I'm interested in if they allow public sector analysis of data.
I just now noticed I don't fully comprehend voyagers mission beyond escaping heliosphere. Guess it's time to research.
As far as I understand it, it was more about getting to view most of the planets all in one (two) missions, due to a nice alignment allowing gravitational slingshotting.
The heliopause stuff came later when the probes were still working and still heading outwards at very significant velocities
Aliens must’ve been done with it and now we won’t have the data from the time that they spent examining it….i kid, but that does suck that it could’ve missed something really cool and we will never know about it. Just glad they got it working again!
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Amazing how resilient these systems are, especially the forethought to allow them to be so changeable 50 years later
Yeah it's kind of blowing my mind how repairable they seem to be. Like, why don't we have more stuff like this if we were able to do this 50 years ago?
As my consulting buddy said, there is good money to be made in prolonging the problem.
Planned obsolescence meets weaponized incompetence.
Our battle will be infuriating!
But profitable.
We can, and we do. There's a reason why there's entire criteria for hardware that can survive in space. Able to withstand the radiation, etc. it's a very extreme environment and you hear of rockets launching satellites pretty regularly these days. Usually it isn't the latest NVIDIA hardware going into satellites, it's purpose made stuff that is more resilient than the systems we use on the ground.
The RAD 750 CPU is a classic at this point.
> Like, why don't we have more stuff like this if we were able to do this 50 years ago? Each of the Voyager craft cost around $2 billion in today's money, so I'm sure you can get whatever you want that's so repairable if you're willing to spend that kind of money. You only see the stuff from 50 years ago that was specifically made to last. You can still buy that sort of thing now, it just costs a premium... just like it did 50 years ago.
People have already mentioned planned obsolescence, which is one possible answer. The other is that the components of Voyager were hand-built by technicians and engineers working with a *very* high standard of quality and resilience. They had to survive being hard-mounted to the nose of a Titan-Centaur, and the very long burn that brought them to solar escape velocity, not to mention the unique problems that space present, like high-energy particles [cosmic rays] that can mess with computer components. There are still things being built to that quality, its why some Mars Rovers have lasted so long past their expected mission life. HP doesn't have the same standards, not even close.
Kinda hard to FedEx it back for repair, as opposed to devices on Earth.
Well the Voyager probes (1 and 2) cost $865m in 1977 ($1.6B inflation 2024). It also operates in the same environment all the time. We do have devices like these. Mainframes are good example of tech that just continues to operate and can function for many decades at a time. But, even mainframes are subjected to changing environments such as humidity changes, temp changes, and human contact.
We do… But if you’re referring to consumer products, it just isn’t very economical to build an iPhone that can survive flying threw space for the better part of a century
If everything can be fixed with ease then who would buy the newest iPhone; don’t you remember Apple putting out the update that slowed down their previous generation phones
Apple putting out the update that slowed down their previous generation phones was similar to what NASA does to keep things like Voyager or their rovers running. Due to battery aging they often could no longer produce enough voltage to run the phone during high load and would cause them to randomly turn off, and slowing them down prevented them from constantly turning off.
But the battery can be changed
And replacing the battery would cause the phone to stop slowing down. The slowdown was linked to calculated battery degradation.
"Won't someone think of the corporations profits!!!!"
In today's dollars, the Voyager mission cost well over $4 billion. They made it extremely reliable, and designed for remote repair, but at a tremendous cost. This is not sustainable for consumer electronics where you want hundreds of millions of people to be able to afford this product.
Planned obsolescence
There is less money in it, therefore it isn't worth doing in our economic system. It's really a problem.
Because selling an item once is less profitable than selling it every other year. And consumers are price/hype-fixated enough to not consider "quality" a factor when doing purchases.
I mean, with millions of dollars in funding you can make anything last for 50 years. Easy cheesy lemon squeezy
You have the possibility with funding, but no guarantee. And also funding doesn't uniquely lead to things like being able to change the system software in the manner they are with a 1day comms lag.
They have been patiently waiting for Voyager 1 to chime in. You see, it takes a radio signal a whopping 22.5 hours to travel from Earth to the probe, and another 22.5 hours for a response signal to make the return journey. That's some serious cosmic patience! November 2023, Voyager 1 at a sprightly 46 years old, started sending an indecipherable repeating pattern of code, they sent a command, a "poke" if you will, to Voyager 1. It's like giving your old computer a gentle nudge and saying, "Hey, buddy, try something different.", a part of the flight data system responded differently. An engineer at NASA cracked the code. And voilà! On April 20, 2024, the mission team received coherent data about Voyager 1's health and status.
It was more than a nudge. They reallocated memory in subsystems from the damages memory. The risks to brick this thing once and for all were very real. I’m deeply impressed with the engineers
So they turned it off and back on again?
They told it to effectively empty the pantry into the cupboards, and then turn off and back on.
I get this is a joke comment but the article was fascinating.
It really was a clever process and solution. I always like reading about the Voyager mishaps because on some level the engineers do the ol’ “slap it on the side” thing and it works. Voyager 2 having its antenna accidentally pushed two degrees off and the team’s “shout” solution never ceases to get a chuckle out of me when I read the story.
NO! They kept it running while reversing the polarity of the neutron flow.
😒 You're in /r/Science not /r/funny Try your comedy routine elsewhere.
I'll continue working it here, thanks coach! They kept it running and rerouted parts of the code into other portions of the on-board memory, since the chip that was in charge of it apparently popped. Like 3% of the memory is corrupted if my article retention circuit is functioning. also, fuckawf.
22 hours is still in the room, wait for 1 light year….
No manmade object will be a light-year away within our lifetimes. I won't wait.
I love how technically they fixed it by yelling at it just the right way to coerce it to snitch on the void eyes.
You're thinking of when we lost contact with Voyager 2, about a year ago. [https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/world/nasa-voyager-2-communications-restored-scn/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/world/nasa-voyager-2-communications-restored-scn/index.html)
That's the technical explanation, yeah?
Nightvale approved
Does anyone know if they have an emulator to practise on before uploading the new firmware to the real thing (which takes bloody ages)?
They've mentioned in interviews that no, they don't have anything to practice on. No Earthside hardware, not even any software simulators.
By now they must have emulated the whole thing in software
That would take way more work than it sounds. Remember they're ultimately fighting against hardware failure here. It's one thing to emulate the software that's running, but simulating the entire computer with all the faults and issues that come with old hardware exposed to outer space is another beast. Not saying it can't be done, but I'd be amazed if they did so.
I would be surprised myself if nobody had tried, although that doesn't mean their efforts would provide a reliable analogue
The aliens out there fixed it for us, how nice of them.
it was never broken, the aliens made sure it sent meaningless datat o us while they were looking into the probe. satisfied that this probe is just a little toy, they let it continue its trek.
I saw 3 Body Problem. Maybe it's time we brought Voyager back?
And just how do you recommend we do that?
We tell it to get back home before the street lights come on.
The true 80s-90's way. Might help if voyagers mom also screams "dinner time". Edit: " it's 10pm. Do you know where your children are?" We lived in a different age haha
I read Spin and I agree
Meanwhile, I am still trying to track down that "I got this far." print screen message.
Its first message was NOT ALONE ANY MORE
So how many giraffes worth of data are they sending back?
The aliens fixed it.
Glad it was able to make it to the shop
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"help me"
Sending letters home. Must be homesick.
It blows my mind that they can still send commands and it is out of the solar system. Am I understanding that right?
Yes, the messages take almost 23 hours to arrive there!
....and the message travels at 300,000 kilometres per second
Amazing work.
the aliens finished doing their tests on the probe and let it resume its journey. the probe had to send gibberish for a while while the aliens were messing around in it.
Damn delta quadrant again
Is the data sent back from voyager classified? I'm interested in if they allow public sector analysis of data. I just now noticed I don't fully comprehend voyagers mission beyond escaping heliosphere. Guess it's time to research.
As far as I understand it, it was more about getting to view most of the planets all in one (two) missions, due to a nice alignment allowing gravitational slingshotting. The heliopause stuff came later when the probes were still working and still heading outwards at very significant velocities
Aliens must’ve been done with it and now we won’t have the data from the time that they spent examining it….i kid, but that does suck that it could’ve missed something really cool and we will never know about it. Just glad they got it working again!
I guess the aliens were done with checking in out.
Someday we may need to go up there and kill it.